Silent Departure
by Pudding and Candy
Summary: A drunk Histoire unleashes a tirade at Neptune, causing the CPU to run away in fear and sadness. Soon after, Neptune gets into an unexpected situation that leads her to discover a secret about her past and lost memories. All the while, an invisible threat creeps into Gamindustri that will force Neptune to make a big decision.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** HDN is the property of IFI and CH, I have no plans to buy the franchise... yet.

* * *

 **Prologue: Fall from Grace**

It was night time around the world, and things were just as normal as it could get in the nation of Planeptune. Other than a few irregularities such as Nepgear staying the night in Lastation and Histoire having a short meeting with the Oracles of the other three nations, a certain CPU was just playing her Saturn console in her room without any worries.

For the most part, Histoire's meeting was mainly to welcome the other Oracles back from their personal business and discuss plans going forward with Gamindustri having gone through the re-write. Everything was going smoothly (In part only because Neptune was kept occupied by her games), but when the meeting was over, the Oracle of Leanbox decided to change the mood a little bit.

"Well, looks like quite a bit has happened while I was gone, what say we take a break here?" Chika said, as she presented two bottles of wine to Histoire.

"I do not think that would be wise, especially when Leanbox needs your full attention in the coming days," Histoire replied as she guided the way out for Kei and Mina.

"Oh com'on, what's one cup going to make a difference? Besides, we both know once we get back to work, our CPUs will be quite a handful to handle as always."

"I suppose... After all, I have not heard from Neptune in a long time now, which is either good or very bad..." Histoire trailed off as she reluctantly accepted a glass from Chika.

 **One hour later...**

"-hic- So as I was saying, my Vert would always wander off to this Planeptune, and she would bring back this girl with long hair and a sailor uniform, who then she claims is her younger sister! Just what the hell is wrong with that!" Chika said, clearly red-faced and a little drunk.

"That's not as bad finding Neptune asleep with her console games wasting power the entire night... -hic-" Histoire replied, also drunk from having few too many glasses of wine.

"And to think I have to work tomorrow! That's it, maybe I will just pass out here..."

"Do what you want, I do not care right now," Histoire replied as she noticed Chika already bowed her head on the table next to the empty bottles of wine.

Meanwhile, Neptune had finally gotten bored of her extended video game session and decided to crawl out of her room and go to the the nearest fridge to get some pudding. After getting her pudding was when she saw the drunk Histoire and wanted to suggest a brilliant idea she got from playing her game History Fencer F.

"Oh hi Histy! Finally your boring meeting is over huh... Anyway, I just thought of something good! We should try selling information to the general public, such as the kind of foods that loners like Noire eat, because you know, everybody always wants the latest gossip, which can sell hi-" was all Neptune managed to say before Histoire cut her off.

"No!" Histoire impulsively responded, as normally she would just explain how effortless Neptune's frivolous ideas were, but because of her drunken state and nearly an hour of talking with Chika about CPU laziness, Histoire was less than pleased to see Neptune.

"What, you didn't even let me finish!"

"There's... no need for you to finish -hic- Now listen here Neptune, I've about had enough of you..."

"Hey, what's wrong Histy?"

"What wrong!? _You_ are what's wrong!"

"Wait-"

"Listen here Neptune, I have had about enough of you! -hic- you never do anything substantial, you are also lazy and don't care about anything other than your selfish self."

"But I do care about-"

"You only care about pudding in your stomach! Just try and remember all the crisis we went through, it was either myself or Nepgear that solved all your problems! Every single threat that ever came up, you were more of a problem than a solution! And poor Nepgear... she has so much potential as a CPU, but it is all being wasted covering your mistakes! If it was not for you, she would be a very capable CPU by now. I always ask myself why you exist, because you only torment me with how useless you are. Even the CPU of the other nations never take you seriously because of how worthless you are. In fact, your entire existence is a _mistake_! -hic-" Histoire finished, her face more red than usual.

There was silence in the room, Histoire had spoken her mind under her drunken state and Neptune now had a downcast face. Time seemed to stand still at the scene with nobody making any sound during this late hour in Planeptune. Finally though, Neptune slowly broke the silence as she opened her mouth and breathed some barely audible words to Histoire before turning around quickly and running away as fast as she could, barely holding back her tears and paying no heed to the cup pudding that dropped on the floor. Meanwhile, Histoire was still vacillating between being awake and unconscious, and slowly she guided herself to the nearest sofa and fell down fast asleep.

Neptune did not stay in the basilicom for very long after hearing what Histoire said to her, as mostly she was guided by emotions of fear, sadness, and confusion. She had gathered a small amount of her belongings in a bag, wrote something down, and then started to run. She had no idea where she would be going, but she was fairly certain that she was unwanted within Histoire's presence. It was not as if what Histoire said was untrue either, and Neptune knew it as well. Still, maybe it was the fact that Histoire finally had enough of her and exploded with such intense hatred; or alternatively, it could also be the fact that Histoire had essentially disowned Neptune on grounds of incompetence.

The answer mattered not, as Neptune continued to run in whatever direction she could away from Planeptune. Her vision mostly blurred by the full stream of tears falling from her eyes, she continued to run for some time until she tripped and fell onto the floor wherever she was. Having no idea where she was, Neptune was just content to stay down after expending so much energy this late into the night. Eventually, she fell asleep after some time, not caring that she was in the middle of nowhere.

After some unknown amount of time though, there was a voice that seemed to call out to her quietly. Slowly Neptune opened her eyes while still lying on the floor and adjusting to what seemed to be boundless light all around her.

"Wake up," said the voice.

"Mmm!" Neptune grunted, barely regaining her consciousness. It was strange because Neptune had remembered she fell down outside somewhere and the ground she was on right now felt like a clean floor instead.

"Hey, are you going to get up?" The voice urged again, this time finally getting Neptune to focus.

Tilting her head upwards, Neptune saw a pair of legs with dark coloured shoes. Looking further up, Neptune recognised the humanoid shape of Uzume, except there were mainly colours of black, grey, and indigo.

"Huh... Kurome...?"


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Recollection**

It was late in the morning, and while Chika managed to drag herself out of Planeptune, Histoire was still passed out on the nearby sofa. Opening the door to the basilicom was Nepgear, who had stayed in Lastation last night with Uni planning a new robot project after shopping for various parts. While Nepgear was happy to be back home and to see her sister again, the first thing she noticed was how quiet it was, and almost felt unnatural. Usually Histoire would have everything in order, but today everything was a giant mess. Nevertheless, Nepgear had to drop off her machine parts before cleaning the place up, so she headed back to her room in the meantime.

When Nepgear opened the door to her room, she was surprised to see that everything was in perfect order, there was not a significant mess of crumbs from snacks as usual and the video console was properly turned off. What was most odd was that Neptune's bed was already made, as if nobody even slept there last night, which really made Nepgear wonder what had happened. Still, the implications would mean that Neptune would be already awake and about, which would be very unusual, but that was when Nepgear noticed a small piece of paper on her pillow. Taking the note, she read the contents:

 _Dearest Nep Jr._

 _By the time you read this, I will not be here anymore. I am sure Histy will tell you about everything._

 _I don't know how to say this, but... I am sorry. Sorry for everything I have ever done._

 _Histy is definitely right though, maybe now Planeptune will be a better place without me._

 _Even so, at least know that even if I am not there anymore I will always love you._

 _Neptune._

"What the goodness, Histoire!" Nepgear panicked, unable to fully comprehend what she just read, especially when there was no context. Immediately, Nepgear ran out her room and called for Histoire, as the note only mentioned Histoire knowing anything regarding the matter. When Nepgear finally found Histoire on the sofa, she shook the oracle violently wake her up. "Histoire, what happened last night?"

"Mmm, Nepgear?" Histoire responded, slowly getting up as she felt the effects from the her hangover.

"I think Neptune has run away, what happened between you two last night?"

"What!?" Histoire said, almost waking up completely from hearing Nepgear's last comment. Quickly Nepgear passed her the note left behind and read through it. It was at this point that Histoire realised something must have happened last night after she had gotten drunk after indulging in too many glasses by Chika's suggestion. "Oh no..."

"Histoire?"

"I do not know the full details, but it would appear I made a very poor choice last night. Please excuse my appearance for now, let's try to look for Neptune."

 **Meanwhile, just on the outskirts of Planeptune in Virtua Forest Depths...**

"Ugh, spending the night out here made me so dirty..." Neptune said, dusting off herself from laying down on the dirt floor the whole night.

"(That's what you get for sleeping in such an awkward position...)" Said Kurome's voice from inside Neptune's head.

"(Wait a minute, you can speak to me right now!?)" Neptune relayed her thoughts to Kurome.

"(Of course, I don't need you to be asleep in order to communicate, we share the same mind now...)"

"(Oh that's just great... I, Neptune, the protagonist have an antagonist nesting right with me, corrupting my pure mind.)" Neptune complained inward as she headed in the direction of Planeptune, with a specific purpose, thanks to an odd conversation within her mind last night:

 _"Wait, you're Kurome! Why are you here, you should be a goner!" Neptune said, struggling to her feet and trying to find the nearest sword-like object to defend herself._

 _"That is partly true. However, I had contingency plan that involved you, but I just never expected it to turn out this way'," Kurome explained, completely not surprised at Neptune's defensive reaction._

 _"But how? Uzume became you and you became Uzume and... or something."_

 _"You remember back when I captured you lot? I already knew 'Me' was going to gather the Candidates and put up the fight we had. So in order to made sure I would be kept alive I had imparted a piece of my consciousness within you. Under the right conditions I can be reconstituted, and with how lucky it was last night your hate fueled me to live again. Shame though that you guys revived 'me' already, so I don't have my powers anymore."_

 _"Wow, so you've got no sense of personal space, using me like this. But wait, what's this about hate? I am not like you."_

 _Kurome smiled at Neptune's remark, knowing full well of the situation. "You cannot hide from me, I have seen your thoughts. All those times you questioned yourself as a CPU, or those times you feared you'd be replaced. Why did you think I chose you as my host form? It was not only because you were Planeptune's CPU, but because of your past that is very similar to my own."_

 _"What, no way! I am the all-loving protagonist! There's no way I could possibly be similar to you with all your gloomy death and destruction mind set." Neptune retorted, getting annoyed at the comparison. At this point though, Kurome started to laugh out loud with Neptune's refutes. "What's so funny?"_

 _"Looks like you have forgotten everything, Histoire was very elaborate."_

 _"What's Histy gotta do with all this?"_

 _"Nepsy, part of your memories were sealed off by Histoire."_

 _"Say what!?"_

 _"It's true. Last night with Histoire's outburst, the emotions of shame, helplessness, and confusion helped your mind recover some of those memories, and I saw them, they were mainly memories during Uranus' time."_

 _"Uranus? I think I remember... or do I?" Neptune questioned herself, feeling uncertain now that she really thought about it._

 _"If you want to find out, you should head to Planeptune's library, there is a way to restore your memories."_

 _"Why should I trust you? You might try to use me to destroy everything again."_

 _"I already said I don't have my powers anymore. Besides, where will you turn for help right now anyway? You're all by yourself collapsed in the middle of this forest, ran away from home, don't have much money, or even the bare necessities, I am sure even you know that you will die pretty soon."_

 _"Ugh..." Neptune said, knowing what Kurome said to her was true._

 _"It will be sunrise soon enough, so get up and head towards Planeptune, I know of a secret passage way that will allow us to get in without causing trouble. There you can verify truth for yourself. And do note that if you do something stupid and get yourself killed, I won't live either."_

Neptune had gotten up from the floor and took her belongings with her, with only a basic sword, some credits, and _one_ change of clothes. She walked her way out of Virtua Forest depths and towards Planeptune again. It was a weird feeling, after what happened last night, she felt that she no longer belonged to this place, but having no other direction she decided to go along with what Kurome said about her memories.

Even though in her mind Neptune still had her doubts because this was Kurome, she still pressed on for the time being since it really was true that she could not really manage much of everyday life on her own. The one problem that presented itself to Neptune as she neared the boarder of Planeptune was that she realised she could not just freely come and go as she pleased anymore, at least not comfortably. Truthfully she had no idea of what was going on inside Planeptune right now, whether Histoire actually announced that she got deposed or maybe everybody was celebrating her departure.

"(Hmm, I don't know if I should just go into Planeptune like this...)" Neptune thought, for the first time in her life that she was afraid to go into Planeptune of all places.

"(You don't need to enter through the city gate, go around to the are directly behind the tower. I remember an old passage way that I created there when I was ready to run away.)" Kurome instructed.

"(Does it still work?)"

"(Of course, unlike the insecure CPU of Lastation, I can see that Planeptune never had its infrastructure remodeled several times over.)"

"(I see... wait, how do you know about Noire's insecurities anyway?)"

"(I looked into all the memories of you CPUs back at that time, though they all have their own history, none of them compares to what I have seen in your memories Nepsy... and that is why I am leading you here.)"

"(You totally sound like a stalker the more I talk to you. Anyway, I am here so what now?)" Neptune asked as she stopped right behind the imposing Planeptune tower just outside the wall.

"(Let me guide you," Kurome responded, when a dark purple aura enveloped Neptune and her hair and eyes darkened to the same indigo colour as Kurome. Reaching down, Neptune placed her palm on the ground, then a magic circle appeared and spun around 3 times before revealing a trap door. Afterwards, Neptune's hair and eyes reverted to her normal colours as she stumbled a bit comprehending what just happened.

"(Hey! Did you just take control of me!?)"

"(Yes, but you don't have to worry about me trying to destroy everything, because you can do that yourself soon enough.)"

"(I wish you would stop teasing me already. If this is all so important, then just tell me everything before I evict you from my mind.)" Neptune said, as she jumped through down through door and began to walk forward to what she suppose is the underground area of Planeptune's tower.

"(Given how you are, you would never believe me. Although... I guess I could give you some context with what you are about to see.)"

"(And that would be?)" Neptune asked, before being interrupted by a huge grumbling in her stomach just as she entered a room at the end of the dark musty tunnel.

"(Just in time, this bunker here I built as an emergency shelter, even has nonperishable rations stored away. You should take care of your sorry self first.)"

Not being in disagreement, Neptune looked through the storage for whatever variety of food she could find. Surprisingly, Kurome had built the bunker with some very innovative technology to be able to preserve the food in here, truly it was the perfect hideout in any situation. While Neptune began to eat, Kurome then began to tell her a bit of information from the past.

"(You probably don't know this without your memories, but Planeptune has always functioned differently than the other nations. Rather than strictly having the CPU or Candidate born from shares, sometimes they can also be elected as well.)"

"(Seriously? This is new to me.)"

"(I was never there at the exact moment, but Uranus was put into power in that way. When the people began to fear my powers, Uranus was popular with the general populace because of her contributions.)"

"(I don't really get it. If you were Uzume and sealed yourself away, how do you know such things anyway?)"

"(And that's the other thing I wanted to mention to you... every CPU of Planeptune has a special talent, whether it came naturally or they developed it, this is what sets us aside from the CPUs of the other nations.)"

"(Oh, I guess that's true. Uzume can make things appear and you can... make people evil!)"

"(No, my talent has always been the power of existence, which is why even when I am not physically there, I know a little about what happened after I was sealed and even appearing in this dimension without a physical body.)"

"(Hmmm, that sounds kinda cool, so... what about Uranus? I know my talent is probably pudding appreciation and Nep Jr. must be mechanical genius!)"

"(Wrong again. Uranus and your talent... I will have to let you find out on your own. Gearsy's talent is obviously diplomacy and charisma, I had thought you'd at least notice that with how she makes friends so easily.)"

"(Don't make fun of me! This is getting annoying, with you keeping everything hidden from me.)" Neptune retorted, getting up from the table as she had finished eating and is now continuing on her way deeper down another path at the back of the room.

Finally, about a minute of walking, Neptune reached the end with a very impressively sealed door with a solid intricate design. It would not move no matter how much Neptune pushed or pulled it, and it was only after Kurome took control for a few seconds that she inputted a code to unlock the door for Neptune to get in. Once inside, Neptune walked up a small flight of stairs until she opened another trap door into the familiar structural design of Planeptune's library. Closing the trap door, a magic circle appeared and hid the secret entrance. Neptune looked around to see that although it was the library, she did not recognise this room, and the shelves were also empty. The only thing that stood out was the pedestal in the middle of the room with a golden tome, as well as a long weird shaped object nearby on the side that Neptune paid no attention to because it seemed unimportant.

"(Here we are... you are about to find out about everything you need to know and maybe back to your true self, being less annoying.)" Kurome said, hinting at the answers that await in the golden tome.

"(I am still having a hard time believing some of these things here you know. Histy may have been tired of me, but why would she do something like taking away my memories?" Neptune asked, still skeptical about this whole endeavour even though the secret passage way and this hidden room were there just as Kurome said it was.

"(Oh she didn't do it on purpose, she herself was sealed herself during Uranus' time, and there is an interesting twist in there that made you the way you are now.)"

"Well... looks like there is only one way to find out..." Neptune said out loud as she took hold of the tome and used its power, where a bright light enveloped the room as Neptune began to relive her mysterious past.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Stirring Evil**

It was now afternoon time, and also quite some time since Neptune had disappeared after having the one-sided conversation with Histoire. For the most part, Nepgear was getting worried and Histoire had gotten over the hangover but was anxious to find out what she had said to Neptune while drunk. Finally, Nepgear remembered that she had set up an advanced security system within the basilicom to catch not only footage but also recording sound as well. In fact, part of her purpose of going to Lastation last night was to pick up more parts to augment the system, which now conveniently reminded her that she could use it to find out what happened last night.

"I just hope this works correctly. It's strange, I tried contacting IF and Compa to see if they've seen Neptune around, but they never replied," Nepgear said as she fiddled with machine system that she installed into the wall while Histoire also waited to hear what possibly could have happened from the night before.

The recording started out with lots of static, but eventually settled down, and rewinding it to just the right time, Nepgear and Histoire began to hear the full conversation of the night before. After hearing drunken Histoire's tirade at Neptune, both of them froze in horror, it was completely unexpected that Histoire to say such things, even if she did raise her voice to get Neptune working before. Worst of all though, they heard Neptune's low audible whisper from the playback as well:

 _"You didn't have to be so mean... but if that's how you really feel, I'll leave..."_ Neptune whispered with visible cracks in her voice.

There were no words to describe the dread Nepgear and Histoire felt as they heard the playback, and they did not say anything for a little while before Nepgear slowly broke the silence.

"H-Histoire..."

"Please listen Nepgear, I didn't mean-"

"I know. But... where do you think Neptune is right now?" Nepgear whispered, knowing full well Histoire was not in the right of mind the night before with what she said, but at the same time knowing that strong words can tear down a person.

 **Meanwhile, in Lastation...**

Uni stood on the upper level of the basilicom and observed the circulation of goods coming in and out of Lastation. There was nothing in particular that seemed to be out of place, but an earlier conversation with Noire had her tasked with the objective to uncover a certain oddity.

The main reason Noire had suspicions was because Lastation's economy was thriving with higher sales and the latest virtual reality hardware was also very well received. Still, Lastation's shares have dropped despite all the success and still continues to dwindle even without interference from the other nations. It was not only Lastation though, Noire noticed a slight drop in shares for all the other nations as well, and while she would like to figure out a solution, her first priority was to ensure Lastation's well being due to her shares being hit the hardest.

Thus, Uni began her search for anything suspicious, and in her hands were a few spreadsheets to peruse for inconsistencies and irregularities. The first thing she had noticed was that the largest manufacturer in Lastation, Avenir, has had multiple discrepancies in their inventory in the same amounts with a certain pattern that span many months back. Deciding to look into the oddity, Uni went through a few of the factories to oversee operations. There was nothing that had seemed out of place in the three locations she had visited, but on her visit to a more remote location further away from Lastation, she caught an unscheduled shipment of materials from a truck.

Noticing how strange things were, Uni sneaked into the back of the truck and hid herself in a cardboard box. She did not want to cause a ruckus by calling out the driver, who seemed normal enough in standard work uniform complying with Lastation standards. Of course, there was also the possibility of explosives that could be used unexpectedly if Uni acted too soon. After a short while with unloading, the truck had began to drive out from the factory and Uni would sometimes peek out from the cardboard box's hole where she could see from the rear view that this truck was going to a very obscure location.

Finally, what seemed to be a never ending quiet ride the truck arrived at an old looking factory and came to a halt. Uni waited for awhile to see if there would be anybody would inspect the truck, but after not hearing a single sound for about ten minutes, she quietly crawled out from the box and peered outside the back of the truck. Here, she saw just and ordinary old factory that was dimly lit, and also very quiet, even the driver had long since disappeared.

"(Strange, the driver clearly had a proper uniform belonging to Lastation, so what is this place... wait what's that?)" Uni thought before seeing something colourful in the corner of the building that caught her eye. Quietly moving to the corner, Uni examined the bright coloured object to be a red headband. She recognised the headband though, it was definitely the same one that K-Sha had worn, but the main question was why it was here in this desolate place.

Uni had barely picked up and inspected the headband when a dark figure had followed her steps and quietly but quickly swung downwards with a long object, hitting Uni in the back of the head and knocking the CPU Candidate unconscious.

 **Later on, night time in the secret section of the Planeptune library...**

Neptune opened her eyes as she was now laying flat on the floor on her back. Se could feel the cold sweat as she quickly sat up and her mind realigned herself back into reality, seeing most of her memories not only took a long time but also overloaded her perception that she passed out momentarily.

"(It's good to see you awake Nepsy, feeling better?)" Kurome asked.

"(...I have seen everything now, those were my memories right?)"

"(Yes, those were without a doubt memories that you lost long ago. So what will you do now?)"

"(I dunno... I have a hard time accepting all this. It makes sense though, if I remember my talent all along, maybe I wouldn't have made Histy so mad with my incompetence. But... things wouldn't be as peaceful as it had been.)" Neptune responded, almost to state of panic over some unpleasant truths.

"(Everything you do is up to you from this point onwards. After all, as long as remember everything, I know you won't die as easily. Why don't you pick _that_ up now that you remember?)" Kurome suggested, as Neptune looked to the side and observed the long object that she ignored earlier. Picking it up, Neptune could feel the nostalgia of holding her original weapon from long days past, and it was all kinds of strange as she somehow reconciles her old self and memories with her current life. Nevertheless, Neptune wrapped up the weapon and carried it on herself for now while she thought about what to do.

"(Well, I need some time to think about all of this. Kurome, open the secret passage way again.)"

"(...)"

"(Kurome?)"

"(Impossible, when I made this passage, it was only intended as one way to get back into Planeptune. You will have to push that faraway bookshelf and exit the library normally.)"

"(Isn't it night time now? There will be security all over the place.)"

"(Which means it is the perfect time to use your abilities now that you remember. After all, it was something you were once very proud of,)" Kurome teased, knowing Neptune would not like to use her abilities in this situation.

"(To think that I would have to do this in Planeptune of all places...)" Neptune regretfully thought as she slowly opened the secret way through the bookshelf and began her leave and opting to still use her sword. Immediately, she leaped up and sliced two security cameras into pieces and then went out to the hallway. Since Neptune was familiar with the basilicom layout, she was able to avoid contact with the security system and guards. While it would have been easy to leave by turning to the right, she instead went left and descended into the basement of Planeptune.

There was normally no reason for Neptune or anybody to come down here, since this room held the sharicite that represented the CPU's very own powers, but Neptune had her own reasons for coming here. Standing in the room, Neptune saw two sharicites, one the left that was a lilac colour and the other one on the right was purple but had a darkened core of indigo colour. Neptune held onto her sword and stepped up near the right sharicite.

"(Hey, stop. What do you think you are doing?)" Kurome said, catching on to what Neptune was doing.

"(I am actually ashamed that I have been a CPU all this time. Not only because I didn't remember anything and acted like an incompetent fool, but because of how it all came to be.)"

"(You are free to think whatever you want, but do remember that destroying the crystal would mean that our lives are on the line too! Are you really thinking of committing suicide after seeing everything?)"

"(Good point, but I have no plans to kill myself like this, and as long as Nep Jr. has shares she can still uphold the nation, so... all we gotta do is be quick about this...!)" Neptune finished her thoughts and she swung her blade, and shattered most of the sharicite, leaving only the darkened core intact before withdrawing from the room quickly.

Very shortly after leaving the shattered sharacite, both Histoire and Nepgear entered the room, as they both felt the drastic change in shares. Upon seeing the scene, they froze in shock as the sharicite that represented Neptune's shares only had the bare core left with many shattered fragments all over the floor. Nepgear dropped to her knees at such a horrible sight, the implications being very grim for her.

"Histoire... what does this all mean?"

"..." Histoire was speechless, she was trying to stay as calm as possible, despite the implications of the sharicite shattering like this would imply.

Meanwhile, Neptune had already swiftly fled out of the basilicom and even out of Planeptune. Having stopped at the top of a hill, she sat down and looked over Planeptune, thinking about how things used to be and how things could have been different. Still, the only thing that mattered to Neptune in Planeptune now was Nepgear, but even then she had to step away and let her sister take care of things for now with scary truth revealed by her own memories.

"(So where do you plan to go now?)" Kurome asked, interrupting Neptune's resting moment of silence.

"(I am going to be deciding that soon enough. Although... I find it strange how small the sharicite was back down the basement. I think something or someone has been working to decrease my shares for some time now.)"

"(Does it even matter now that you basically cast away your CPU powers?)"

"(Not really. But, it is the most interesting thing to do for now especially when I am trying to find purpose.)"

"(Sounds more to me you are just secretly looking after your sister.)"

"(Yeah well, it is something I have done almost all my life, as well as the numerous sacrifices I made just to ensure her safety. For now though, I need some time away for Planeptune. I know just the job to reach my objectives and probably get me back in shape too. It's useless to remember my abilities when I cannot even execute them correctly.)"

With everything said, Neptune started to walk away from Planeptune. She had no real time set for returning even though there are many attachments to her nation, but for now she went to where she would set up her base of operations in Lastation.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Full Awakening**

A week has passed since Neptune departed Planeptune, and now the nation was fending for itself still trying to battle the declining shares. Naturally, when shares have been declining all across Gamindustri, the figureheads of all nations came together to figure out what was going wrong. Obviously, with one CPU and one Candidate missing as well as some Makers and all of the Gold Third, there was no time for secrets, so all four nations were in open forum. Appropriately, there had been a formal apology from Leanbox to Planeptune for a certain issue, and of course while Histoire could say more to a certain Leanbox oracle, she refrained from doing so during this time of deliberation.

As for Neptune...

Walking right out of the Golden Summit of Planeptune was the covered figure of Neptune, who had just finished scouting around the area. When she relocated to Lastation last week, she had taken up a scouting job there because she knew Noire to be meticulous with security. Furthermore, Neptune had swapped out her usual attire with dark blue coloured hoodie, black and indigo coloured stockings, along with a pair of dark gray shoes. Much of this was done to blend into Lastation as a scout and also to hide her commonly known face as Purple Heart. Pulling the hood over her head, Neptune began to walk back to Lastation in order to report her findings.

"(Not going to explore the dungeon first before reporting back?)" Kurome asked, seeing as how Neptune would usually explore the places she scout before reporting anything to Lastation.

"(Normally I would, but with the recent announcement that everybody is working together, we need to adapt a bit. Once word gets out that there's a dungeon right underneath Planeptune's Golden Summit, I am sure that everybody will be going there soon. Rather, since there was a hidden place in this Golden Summit, I think it would be best to explore the other Summits. Maybe they all have a hidden dungeon in them as well. Also we won't run into anybody problematic and if there is a job to explore those in the future, it will save us some time,)" Neptune explained, being very careful on how and where she operated while being a scout for Lastation.

"(How elaborate, this is so unlike you when you were the CPU. Still, you are not content with merely living this kind of life are you?)"

"(Of course not, I am still thinking what to do. Even with my abilities back, my conditioning still is not where it used to be. Whether I want to use _that_ again or just keep my swords is another question too. After all, Uranus is gone now, so I have freedom to do whatever I wish without her holding control over me,)" Neptune said, while arriving just outside of Lastation.

Once she was in the city, she went straight to the guild to report her finding of the hidden access way to access a dungeon from the Golden Summit in Planeptune. Afterward, Neptune made a quick stop to her temporary residence just on the edge of Lastation near the eastern entrance.

Opening the door, the ordinary room with bed, desk, window, washroom, closet, radio, television, and lamp was all tidied up in an orderly fashion. As expected for Lastation personnel keeping the Inn clean. The room also had a wooden interior, and while there was some colours of white on the bedsheets and curtains by the window, most of the furnishings were decorated with Lastation's shade of black. Even though the room was far removed from the luxury that Neptune used to live in, it did not matter to her, as simplicity suited her best especially under the current circumstances. Neptune had mainly used the room to watch or listen to the current events in Gamindustri, as most of the time she went out as a scout to see the events or sneak into Lastation's basilicom to eavesdrop. Since Neptune worked as a scout here, she was also paid fairly well and thus has enough money for all her accommodations.

Of course, beyond the few sheets of paper that Neptune had drawn out diagrammes of her scouting tasks, she kept nothing very valuable in her room. Only her old set of clothes needed to be carefully locked up in the closet, but otherwise Neptune used everything to her advantage to minimise the need of keeping possessions within a room. Her greatest asset was memory though, as things that she read, see, or hear Kurome would be able to access the memories with clarity at anytime.

After mixing a few Nep Bulls and packing up the essentials, Neptune left her room and started her walk towards Lowee. She had to get an early start to walking as she could no longer abuse her HDD form to fly there, and that she also had her original weapon carefully tied and wrapped behind her back, which weighed quite a bit. Neptune had already completed her task at work for Lastation today, so she was free to do as she pleased.

Without incident, Neptune managed to walk into Lowee territory and headed straight towards the Golden Summit there. She had figured that this one was further away enough from the others, and besides her being dressed in darker colours contrasting with the colourful grass and sky environment around her, she was able to easily travel through and effortlessly dispose of any monsters that got in her way. Arriving at the Golden Summit, Neptune forced her way in and went straight to work.

Searching each of the four corners of the first floor, Neptune found the same fault in one of the corners and uncovered a teleportation tile. Using the secret entrance, Neptune arrived at a secret dungeon just like the one she discovered earlier in Planeptune: Dark, rusty, and damp walls with barely any light along with steel bar gates and even some chains hanging from the ceiling. There was also a heavy miasma rising up from the floor, which seemed to be harmless.

"(Just as I thought, there is a dungeon here too. So there are probably four in total with all the Golden Summits,)" Neptune thought, while observing the gate in front of her with a blue keyhole in the door attached.

"(And I would imagine there would be some kind of security in place too. Make sure you don't get yourself killed,)" Kurome replied, knowing that while Neptune is capable, she is by no means invincible.

"(Yeah, speaking of security, let's see what they got...)" Neptune said in response while pulling out a pair of infrared goggles and looking through them, she saw a few lasers on the ground just in front of the gate. Putting the goggles aside, Neptune looked to the left and saw what appeared to be a staff member of Lowee's basilicom by the clothing. However, the person had turned around and spotted Neptune.

"Hey, unauthorised visitors aren't allowed in here!" Yelled the staff member, charging at Neptune with a gun.

Neptune swung her sword on reflex and not only disarmed the guard, but also charged forward to cut away at the knees to disable movement. Neptune quickly reached down and pilfered the guard for a blue key. Neptune unlocked the gate with the blue key hole and moved forward while avoiding the laser she saw earlier. Still, it was of no real use because the guard knocked down earlier had crawled to the nearest wall and pulled the alarm, alerting the entire dungeon of an intruder.

"(Honestly Nepsy, you're being too soft. You could have just killed the poor fool and saved us from all this trouble,)" Kurome remarked, seeing as skilled as Neptune was, she had no killing intent with her attacks.

"(There's no need to kill people without purpose. Besides, it would be trouble if too many of Blanc's staff members just died all of a sudden.)"

"(Still trying to hold onto those ideals? I don't think that these guys are affiliated with White Heart you know,)" Kurome remarked while four more guards poured in from two connecting passages of the hallway.

"(Now that you mention it, it is strange. These dungeons have not been reported anywhere, but the people here are all dressed in the same uniform as the people in Lowee...)" Neptune thought as she quickly avoided the few attacks from the guards and made quick slashes across the upper body of all of them to bring them down. Afterward, she proceeded to pilfer the pocket of one of the guards to pick up a yellow key, but one of the them that was struck down had gotten back up and charged at Neptune.

Before the attack could connect, a dark purple aura enveloped Neptune and her hair and eyes changed to a darker shade of purple, then quickly evading the attack, she countered with a downward slash, completely killing the guard this time before her hair and eyes returned to their normal colours.

"(That was too close. You have to remember, without your powers as a CPU you are not as durable as before, so kill the bastards before they kill us!)" Kurome warned, as Neptune was left stunned at the sudden lose of control.

"(I guess there's really no choice...)" Neptune replied, knowing that what Kurome was saying is true. It was only thanks to Kurome having a small portion of power to temporarily take over that prevented serious injury just now, even though Neptune was still worried that the would-be destroyer of Gamindustri would completely take over her. After all, since existing and surviving within her mind, Kurome had slowly grown with her influence and even been able to take control for a longer period of time.

Before Neptune would unlock the gate in front of her, she ventured into the left corridor and saw several small rooms that looked like prison cells. Taking a quick look, there were indeed people inside the rooms, all locked up. Some of the people locked up in the right corridor were shivering and others seemed to be preoccupied fiddling with something inside their cells. Regardless of what the people were doing, they were all dressed in sackcloth and also seemed to be malnourished along with hazy red eyes. This prison seemed to hold all sorts of different people, ranging from basilicom staff, elderly, young, and even small animals.

"(Well, somebody sure is doing something interesting here. I think it is best to keep them locked up for now,)" Kurome advised, knowing that Neptune would just try to free the prisoners in this situation.

"(Hmm, there is something really strange about them, but... all right, we'll leave them for now...)" Neptune said while refraining from using the yellow key to unlock the prison doors on either corridor and just unlocked the gate in the middle and went down the stairs.

Once down on the lower floor, Neptune saw the same layout as before with the gates and guards. Except this time, instead of just guards in the uniform of Lowee basilicom, there were security Bits as well as armed guards from Lowee at this location. Naturally, in order to get the brown key for the gate up ahead, Neptune would have to engage into battle with the guards, and this time she made quick work of them and did not spare their lives with her sword.

"Something is really not right here, basilicom staff on the first floor and now even Lowee's army in this place. There must be something larger at work here..." Neptune remarked, noticing the tight security of the place as well as the type of people deployed here.

"(Seems like this is related to the shares dropping. I should have done something like this when I had the chance,)" Kurome said, seeing the subtle ways in which shares were being eroded away.

"(Shut it,)" Neptune retorted, having just enough of Kurome for one day.

Proceeding through the front gate, Neptune continued deeper into the dungeon and both corridors on either side lead to the same thing with many prisoners living in terrible conditions. With the presence of Lowee's armed forces, it almost looked like a rebellion was taking place. Nevertheless, Neptune engaged into one more battle with some guards and Bits, and after a short struggle with the larger group she reached the last gate with a black key hole. Unfortunately, none of the slain guards had a black key, so Neptune could only peer through the gate and observe there was a teleportation circle. While Neptune was taking a look through the gate though, some dark figure had sneaked up from behind and was about to attack with a long object, but Neptune instinctively reacted and parried the blow with her sword.

"Damn, almost worked," said the mysterious figure, backing off a little bit.

"Who are you?" Neptune asked, not quite recognising her silent assailant.

"Hah, you don't need to know anything when I am going to kill ya!" was the arrogant reply from the other party as it charged forward at Neptune again.

Quickly moving to the side, Neptune then caught a good look at the person: A gray hoodie with mouse ears, green hair, red eyes, and a meanacing iron pipe for a weapon. Wasting no time, Neptune went on the counter offensive and swung her sword, but her attack was blocked by the iron pipe before being pushed back.

"(Now that's a face I had not seen in a long time!)" Neptune thought, remembering the infamous Linda.

"(Hm, she was a member of that ASIC organisation wasn't she? All these years and she still lives. Quite impressive for a rat... but wait, something isn't quite right,)" Kurome noted, sensing something quite different from the Linda here compared to the person that appeared within Neptune's memories.

Neptune and Linda clashed with their weapons, but neither was prevailing over another as they were evenly matched. Of course, such a deadlock merely annoyed the former Underling as she was about to reveal her true self.

"Hm, not bad. Looks like you're not just some random weakling. But as warden of this Human Ranch, I will have to make sure you don't make it out alive," Linda said as she glowed with light and pulsed with waves of mist that looked similar to the miasma the dungeon emitted.

As Neptune and Linda continued to fight and cross their weapons, the force from Linda now was far greater and pushed Neptune back and into the ground. Just as Neptune got up, Linda already charged forward and followed up with another attack before Neptune could react and took a direct hit.

"Augh!" Neptune coughed as she backed up into the wall but quickly pivoted out of the way as the Underling did not stop the barrage of attack. What Neptune noticed though was that the attacks were far greater in strength than any normal human could possibly muster.

"(Just as I thought. She's using share power somehow,)" Kurome said, noticing the difference in strength.

"(What!? So the missing shares were being stolen and then somehow used? This just keeps getting better...)" Neptune thought before taking another hard hit from the iron pipe on her side.

"Hahaha, how do you like that? I am unstoppable!" Linda bragged, before chanting her explosion spell, which instantly came bursting out right at Neptune.

Neptune braced herself for impact and was barely standing after the fire attack, but Linda continued her relentless assault with the iron pipe. With her movements slowed from fatigue and taking multiple hits, Neptune could only parry half the incoming attacks and was repeatedly struck until she was backed into the wall and fell down.

"(This is bad. You are basically a normal human fighting against a CPU's power. I suggest you withdraw before we both die,)" Kurome warned, seeing Neptune in a clearly bad shape. Neptune did not move though, and Linda only moved closer and was ready to deliver the final crushing hit.

Just as the iron pipe was coming down, Neptune gritted her teeth and impulsively swung her sword upwards, blocking the hit but broke her sword in the process. Linda backed off in alert after the quick retaliation, while preparing for another assault as Neptune slowly got to her feet.

"(So this is how it feels like to be against a CPU's power with nothing but myself... All this time I took those powers for granted and even now I still have all these regrets over what I could have or should have done. What a joke, Histy was right when she said as I was a failure as a CPU, however...!)" Neptune thought as she was barely standing still.

"Not bad of a struggle, maybe I will let you live so you can be converted into power for myself... if you beg for it on your knees that is," Linda bragged again, completely smug while being drunk on her own power. At once she charged forward again and swung her iron pipe with all her strength, but Neptune grabbed the pipe with her bare hand.

"I remember clearly now... The whole reason why I developed my talent, it was not only to keep Nepgear safe, but also to survive in this harsh world, especially under Uranus," Neptune breathed, coming to a personal revelation.

"Huh? What the hell on you going on about? Just die!" Linda said as she pry her pipe loose from Neptune and readied to strike again.

Neptune quickly dropped her broken sword and reached behind to her back and gripped her original weapon. Pulling back, all ropes and the cloth ripped apart and Neptune revealed a giant dark blue mechanical bow with a black handle. At the same time, Neptune's hood had flown backwards, revealing her face to which Linda also recognised.

"What the, it's _you_!?"

"I am done with hesitating. I will do whatever it takes to survive, just like before!" Neptune proclaimed as she quickly released a volley of energy arrows that made Linda go on the defensive as three arrows sunk into her skin.

"Dammit!" The Underling screamed while bleeding out.

Meanwhile, Neptune's eyes had changed, focusing and being sharpened she took a stance while focusing on Linda with a small needle in hand from her bow's hidden compartment. After carefully planning her route, Neptune charged at high speed right through the unsuspecting Linda with a definitive strike.

"What the hel- *cough*" Linda sputtered as a little blood poured out from her mouth.

"You are dead already," Neptune stated.

"What? I-" Linda managed to say before her face and all her skin turned purple from the fast-acting poison and her body shriveling up and quickly decomposing into a pile of powder.

Neptune could almost feel a smile from Kurome in her mind as she relayed her thoughts, "(Haha, that was beautiful Nepsy. Looks like Uranus really raised you well, there was nobody who ever came close to your killer instinct as Planeptune's most feared assassin.)"

"(Yes, and Uranus put me through hell to sharpen my killing techniques. Yet, even she underestimated me... and that's why I killed her too.)"


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Crazed**

Inside the dark damp dungeon under the Planeptune Golden Summit were footsteps echoing through the hallways as a party of Nepgear, Noire, Ram, and Rom had broken through both floors of the dungeon. When Noire had received a report from her nation's scouting force that there was a dungeon here in Planeptune, she went over to get some help with exploration. After all, the location was in Planeptune and of course Nepgear was the most logical choice to partner with, especially when Uni was still missing. Blanc had already departed with Vert after discovering a similar dungeon in Leanbox, and since Ram and Rom wandered in while Noire was about to depart for Planeptune, she took the twins along as well.

As the party explored the two floors of the dungeon though, they had been surprised at the horror show with the many civilians and common people locked in cages in their lethargic state. Even though they had managed to acquire the keys to free most of the people, the prisoners were either unresponsive or overly aggressive. As a precaution the party had contacted Histoire to send a convoy to extract the prisoners, and after a struggle against an abnormally strong CPU Breaker machine, they took a moment to rest.

"Is it over? We almost died!" Ram said, struggling to stand up.

"I think we should be fine now. But still, what was that thing? It was as if it was using share power... and the miasma in this place doesn't let us transform either..." Noire observed, concerned over some of the very worrisome findings in this dungeon.

"We'll have to let Histoire examine some of this stuff when we get back. For now though, let's see if Neptune or Uni is locked in here anywhere," Nepgear said, picking up the dark key from the broken down machine and began to search the left and right corridor to free all the prisoners.

When Nepgear had searched everywhere, she did not find her sister or her friend much to her disappointment; however, she did find people that were familiar in the prison cell at the end of the left corridor.

"Please help... anybody..." Said a weak and desperate voice from inside the prison cell.

"Compa! Hold on, We'll get you out of here right now," Nepgear replied as she began to unlock the cell door.

"Ge-ge... I'm so glad to see you, please help Iffy!" Compa said, barely keeping consciousness herself as Ram and Rom tended to her out the cell. At the same time, Nepgear and Noire looked deeper into the cell and saw IF laying on her back and convulsing with listless red hazy eyes.

"Goodness, what's wrong IF?" Nepgear said, while not even getting a response.

"She looks like she has been afflicted with the same condition as the other prisoners, we should get her help," Noire said as she and Nepgear carried IF outside.

After what seemed like a never ending journey back to Planeptune, Noire, Ram, and Rom had gone back to report to Histoire about their findings. As for Nepgear, she went back to the hospital to visit Compa, who was in much better condition than IF.

"Compa, are you feeling better now?" Nepgear asked as she sat down next to Compa's side.

"Yeah, I am all right. But how is Iffy doing?" Compa replied, remembering the horrific state that IF had been in.

"The doctors said they cannot identify what kind of illness it is, even though there was no physical injuries at all. But... how did you two end up in such a place anyway?"

"We were just out working one day, and one of our clients wanted to show us something, but somewhere we fell asleep... and then when we came to, we were in that dungeon. They put us to work for most of the day and only had one meal, but the water there had a very strange taste so I didn't drink it. Iffy drank it anyway and a few days was when she started to act really weird, and then eventually she was just unresponsive..." Compa recounted between sobs, still horrified from the confinement.

"That's horrible, who could be doing something like this..."

"I am sorry I don't know, but I am just glad to be back. How's Nep-Nep?"

"Ah... well, that's..." Nepgear replied, while hesitating to bring up more bad news within an already depressing conversation.

"Did something happen?"

"Yeah, let me start from the beginning" Nepgear said, beginning to explain about everything from about a week ago with Neptune and the events leading up to the current state of Gamindustri.

 **The next day, over in Lastation...**

Neptune had got all her equipment ready after waking up and was about to head on outside for her next task. Thanks to a few Nep Bulls and a few bandages, her wounds healed rather quickly and was able to resume work without complications. Still, Neptune was more concerned about the fact that somebody or something had managed to manipulate share power outside of CPU usage, which had some grim implications.

"(Hm, why in the world was that Underling able to use share power?)" Neptune thought.

"(Well, the rat did call the place a 'Human Ranch' so it is probably related. Perhaps you should check the other Summits to be sure, and don't forget to kill everybody of course.)" Kurome suggested, with emphasis on the killing part.

"(It must be fun for you to just to sit back and relax and watch as I kill huh?)"

"(It is what you do best after all.)"

"(You are not wrong, but tell me one thing, what do you get for encouraging me to kill people? Is it just to indulge in sadistic pleasure?)"

"(You wound me with your accusation, you just have to remember that my existence is bound to you being alive now, so anything of my advice is to help us survive. Besides, the circumstances that have lead you to this position is similar to what happened to me. Think of it as forsaken CPUs sticking together.)"

"(Right. Now that I think about it, you kinda merged with Uzume, so does that mean she remembers as much as you do as well?)"

"(Probably not, we became two separate entities once I was sealed, so most likely she only has memories up until that point.)"

"(I see, so she doesn't know as much as you, guess I can't-)" Neptune thought as she was interrupted by a very loud noise from downstairs.

 **BANG!**

"What was that!?" Neptune breathed as she headed towards the door to her room, but stopped when she heard loud footsteps climbing the stairs. Staying still, she waited as the footsteps got closer and closer to her room. Finally, in anticipation of a break-in, Neptune readied her bow and then... nothing happened. Still, she did not move for about a minute just to be safe, but that is when she heard a small tapping sound on her door. It was then followed by a few ticking sounds, to which Neptune immediately recognised what was going on and leaped away from the door as far and fast as possible when an explosion took place.

Landing on the other end of the room behind the bed, Neptune thought about what to do. Whoever planned this knew who she was and may have other weapons beside the explosive just now. Trusting her own instincts, Neptune readied her bow again and stood up while firing off an arrow. Neptune did not see anything as the arrow flew in the direction of the door but she did hear footsteps as she fired the arrow, so she ducked down behind the bed once more. Immediately, following her hiding, there was a loud gunshot that echoed through the room followed by pieces of broken furniture landing in front of Neptune.

"(Invisible enemy? Hmm, no choice then...)" Neptune thought as she grabbed onto the bed sheet and flung it upwards to where she guessed her assailant was, obstructing their vision. Next, she ran to the closet and retrieved her parka dress and a small case of iron arrows. The next gunshot that followed barely missed Neptune while she ran to the window and did a quick leap out of the room while looking back into the room with her goggles on to see a certain humanoid shape.

Since there was a tree just outside the window of Neptune's room, she caught onto a few branches as she was falling down to lessen the impact from the fall. Once on the ground, Neptune ran back into the floor lobby to see what was going on, but seeing receptionist shot dead she realised what earlier loud noise was all about.

"Whoever that was, sure wasn't subtle at all..." Neptune whispered to herself as she began to exit the Inn through another exit. Since her assailant was invisible, if anybody saw her right now she would be mistaken for murdering someone. Even more concerning was that the enemy had some sort of invisibility equipment that made targeting much more difficult.

"(I took a look at the person you briefly saw back there, this is very interesting,)" Kurome said while Neptune took a shortcut over the wall and slipped out of Lastation through the eastern entrance without being seen by the guards.

"(You mean the intruder?)"

"(Yes, the one who attacked you is the CPU Candidate of Lastation.)"

Neptune stopped running. It made sense why there were gunshots, but some things seemed to be very odd about the way she was attacked. "(Hm, if that really was Uni, it made no sense for her to kill the receptionist downstairs. But the biggest question is how did she know we were in that room and also... I remember sneaking into the basilicom one time and heard from Noire that Uni was actually missing. Something does not quite add up here, I need to go back and check.)"

"(And by the way, when you jumped out the window you also dropped your fake ID card,)" Kurome informed, implicating that Neptune was a Person of Interest regardless of what happens now.

"(Well, so much for that then,)" Neptune thought as she slipped through the guards at the entrance to Lastation. At the very least, she was thankful that she was able to retrieve her old parka dress to prevent her real self form being identified. The other good thing was that with shares dropping, even Lastation has run low on resources as well as personnel to guard the place so Neptune was able to slip through the entrance easier than before.

As expected, the Lastation police force had already secured and closed off the general neighbourhood due to the explosion. For now, it was impractical to try and go back to the scene of the crime, but Neptune knew that Uni could not have possibly ran out from the same entrance she did because she would still be chased even after leaving Lastation, and also that the route Neptune took was a specific short-cut only she knew. What Neptune did think about was that other than the east entrance she used, the nearest exit to Lastation would be the south entrance going through the slums.

When Neptune entered the slums, she immediately saw the evidence that Uni had went through this area: dead corpses everywhere, all having fatal gunshot wounds. Wasting no time, Neptune began run through the area towards the south exit, her only hope of catching Uni.

"(So much for setting up in Lastation, a week later and the cover is already blown...)" Neptune thought, seeing as how easily her room was exposed and infiltrated.

"(This may be just my guess, but do you remember when we went to that 'Human Ranch' yesterday?)" Kurome asked, figuring out part of the mystery in Gamindustri.

"(Yeah, did you see something interesting?)"

"(If we suppose that somebody had built the dungeons and posted guards from their respective nations there, they would surely have other agents within each nation as well. And we broke into one of their places yesterday, this is likely a retaliation.)"

"(Retaliation? But why would Uni be working with them?)"

"(And that's the other thing Nepsy, from what we saw yesterday in the dungeon, the people kept in the left side all seemed to have those unfocused eyes while the people on the right side were in slave labour. It's possible the people on the left side were under mind control.)"

"(I guess mind control is your specialty that you'd recognise it immediately. Great, so the possibility of Uni being controlled by some unknown enemy is already bad enough, but somehow she is also invisible too.)"

"(This is what makes things all the more interesting, you will have plenty of opportunities to put those people out of their misery. Now put on your goggles, she should be going through here any time now,)" Kurome suggested, seeing the Lastation entrance way in view but no sight of Uni just yet.

"(Hate to say it, but looks like I was too emotional with killing the Underling yesterday that I actually used up all of my poison needles at once. And in this day and age, it is not easy to find the ingredients needed for synthesis.)"

"(That has never stopped you from killing your targets,)" Kurome commented, as Neptune arrived at the southern entrance of Lastation and did not see anything out of the ordinary yet.

Neptune immediately put on the infrared goggles and scanned the area, knowing that an invisible Uni with a gun is something quite dangerous and not to be taken lightly. However, while Neptune was looking from the right side, a loud gunshot rang from the left side, shooting one of the guards in the entrance right in the head.

"Oh hell!" Yelled the other guard, panicking and looking around for a few moments before also being shot to death.

Neptune turned around and saw Uni's figure running out of Lastation, there was no mistaking it this time seeing the figure. Still, it was completely out of character to murder Lastation guards in this manner for Uni, which may just confirm some of the mind control hypothesis Kurome had said. Regardless, Neptune ran out after Uni to see what was happening with the CPU Candidate. What she ultimately saw was Uni taking control of a truck and proceeding to drive off, and so acting quickly Neptune jumped into the back and hid behind a few empty crates. The truck then drove off in full speed, well over the legal limits of Lastation or all of Gamindustri for that matter. In the short drive, Neptune thought Uni would have been suicidal driving so fast, but eventually the truck travelled to an obscure location far away from Lastation and stopped safely.

Waiting for a few minutes after hearing a hard slam on the truck door, Neptune slipped out and looked around the area. The entire place looked very dirty with grime on the walls and poor lighting everywhere, but the factory was definitely still running with some background noises despite the conditions. As Neptune stepped forward a bit, she heard a faint footstep that was not her own, and in the next moment, she turned around and raised her bow and blocked what appeared to be a knife thrust. There was nobody behind her however, but putting on her infrared goggles again, she saw the obvious figure of Uni armed with her rifle and also a belt attached with many knives.

"(There she is, looks like she also decided to use small knives too. I wonder if this is by her own choice or the mind control's effects...)" Neptune thought while she stared down with the invisible Uni.

"(Whatever the case may be, you better not hold back on this one. One mistake and you could be dead.)" Kurome warned.

"(I know who I am up against...)" Neptune responded as she made the first move and materialised her energy arrows and fired off a few shots.

The arrows managed to hit Uni on the hand and caused her rifle to drop, but she responded by drawing out a knife and charging forward. Neptune dodged to the right and caught Uni by the wrist, stopping her movements but Uni still followed up with a kick that made Neptune let go of her hand and backed away. As Uni picked up her gun again, Neptune fired off another volley of arrows, preventing Uni from using her rifle. Still, Uni did not seem to react to the pain at all and instead took up a knife in both her hands and rushed forward in a savage attack.

Neptune withdrew as Uni continued to flail wildly in front of her, and although Neptune was adapt at dodging such attacks, the ferocity and quickness from a CPU Candidate had her on the defensive more than usual. When Neptune felt the solid wall behind her, Uni pounced forward to strike but missed as Neptune dropped down on the floor then countered with a kick upwards. Uni flew up a short distance then landed hard on the floor, and although slow to get up, she did so while emitting a growl.

"(She's tough, I wonder what's really happening to her, as she doesn't seem to be capable of coherent speech,)" Neptune thought, before being caught up surprise as Uni lunged forward very quickly and grabbed both hands. Reacting quickly, Neptune raised her leg and tried to kick Uni away, but as if ignoring the pain, Uni pushed Neptune right into the ground and making Neptune lose grip of her bow. Just as Uni was about grab another knife, Neptune raised her head quickly to knock Uni away then distanced herself to retrieve her bow.

Seeing the savagery that Uni was inhibiting, Neptune reached into her pocket and pulled out a small vial and coated an iron arrow with a yellow liquid, then as Uni got up again Neptune shot a direct hit right into Uni's arm.

"RAAAAAH!" Uni screamed while grabbing onto the arrow and pulling it back out before facing Neptune again.

Neptune began to run away while Uni was in hot pursuit after her. After a few moments though, Uni began to slow down and eventually she was immobilised and fell to the ground writhing while still screaming. Neptune carefully approached the struggling Candidate and carefully looked to see on the left of her waist there was a small device beside her cellphone. Reaching down carefully and quickly, Neptune managed to pry off the odd-looking device and sure enough, Uni's camouflage wore off instantly.

"So this is what she was using this whole time..." Neptune whispered to herself as she took off her infrared goggles now that Uni was no longer invisible. However, what she saw was a very unsightly looking Uni with filthy clothing, almost as if she was a feral animal rather than an actual person.

When it seemed that Uni ceased her struggle, Neptune raised her bow again to shoot another paralytic arrow just to be sure of disabling the feral CPU Candidate, but when she took aim, Uni was enveloped into a bright light as Black Sister emerged and immediately started a fierce counter attack. Unlike how Black Sister usually looked, Uni's green eyes were completely blank and devoid of life along with a dark shade of green. Nevertheless, Black Sister took hold of her cannon and began to fire off energy blasts in all directions in an uncontrolled rage.

"(Yeah, she has totally lost her mind. Whoever is responsible for this sure knew what they were doing!)" Neptune thought as she avoided the many blasts inside the small factory room and hid behind the truck.

"(I suppose even if you tried to, it would be pretty difficult to kill her like this. It also does not appear she is using Lastation's shares for her power either,)" Kurome observed, as the power Uni exhibiting were much more than what corresponds to Lastation's current shares.

"(Well good, if she is like this maybe I can go all out just for a little bit...)" Neptune said as she let herself smile a little bit as Uni blasted off the top of the truck and flew over in front of Neptune.

Neptune quickly shot a few of her energy arrows that merely dissolved when coming in contact with Uni, then running through to the open area and facing Black Sister. Immediately, the CPU Candidate rushed forward with a charged shot while Neptune pulled back her bow and fired an iron arrow that was also infused with the bow's energy that went flying past Uni's charged shot and then Neptune jumped to the right to avoid the energy ball.

Uni's attack had grazed Neptune as she fell to the ground and a small explosion from the shot exploded behind her. Black Sister however, was recoiling from taking Neptune's power arrow right in the face, and although there was no serious injury, Uni was stunned by the force of the impact. During this time, Neptune ran behind Uni and aimed carefully with another iron arrow, this shot struck Uni right in the Achilles tendon as the CPU Candidate roared out in pain and dropped to the floor. Wasting no time, Neptune coated a few more arrows with paralytic poison and went over striking in arrows into Black Sister's arms and legs. Afterwards, Neptune reached down and took Uni's cellphone, then called Noire directly.

"U-Uni!?" Noire replied on the other end, surprised to see a call from her missing sister.

"Listen well Black Heart, Uni has been afflicted with a strange illness, come to these coordinates to retrieve her..." Neptune said.

"What, who are you!?" Noire replied on the other end of the phone, but Neptune already hung up and tossed the phone back near the screaming Uni.

Having everything she needed from here, Neptune found the nearest exit from the factory and ran out before any of Lastation's forces could get there.

"(Hm, that was surprising. I thought you would have killed her,)" Kurome said as Neptune continued her path away from the factory.

"(It certainly was within my power to do so, but I'd rather let Noire handle that mess. I was just more concerned that somebody knew who I was that could expose me, but I am sure Uni won't remember anything. That aside, I am also interested in the mastermind behind this whole. At least for now, I got this out of the whole ordeal though...)" Neptune replied as she held out the camouflage device that Uni was using earlier, seeing that its origins were not native to Lastation, but did have an oddly familiar purple design.

 **That night, within the Planeptune hospital**

IF opened her eyes, revealing shades of red and haziness. She got up from her hospital bed, and immediately began to leave the room. Despite showing the unusual symptoms of lethargy, there was no significant physical injuries on IF that required hospital equipment so she was able to move freely. Walking out to the dark hallways of the hospital, IF began to search for an exit. On the way though, one of the staff had caught her wandering around and immediately went to tend to her.

"Excuse Miss, are you lost by any chance?" Said the doctor, while IF simply ignored him and kept walking. Seeing no response, the doctor urged further while grabbing hold of IF, "Hey, it is night time right now, patients need to-"

Right away, IF spun around and grabbed the doctor by his neck while throwing him on the floor. After a few moments of struggling, the doctor had the life wrung out of him and IF stood up then continued to walk towards the nearest exit.

"Faith Dew..." IF whispered to herself as she wandered into the streets of Planeptune.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Decaying Gamindustri**

Neptune arrived at the outskirts of Planeptune, she was led back here much earlier than she anticipated. This was not because she was going to settle down here again, but during the last battle with Uni she recognised a need for more tools to fight as well as fine tuning of her bow. Luckily with the camouflage device, Neptune was able to hide her suspicious figure, since she had her right sleeve burned off from being grazed by Uni's attack earlier. Passing through the security at the entrance of Planeptune, Neptune began to make her way to an old weapon shop established by Uzume back in the day.

"(Are you heading where I think you are going?)" Kurome asked, remembering the rather familiar route.

"(Yeah, gotta keep up with the times here, my Bow is outdated and also damaged from that last battle. And... as you may know that place is where it all started...)" Neptune replied.

"(Oh that's right, you wanted to use giant swords, but Uranus disagreed and eventually she forced you to use a bow instead.)"

"(Yes, to 'maximise killing efficiency' as she would say, little did she know that I became too good at it and ended up saving Nepgear from her... Still, I do not particularly like that place, I am just going to pick some things up and-)" Neptune expressed, before hearing somebody scream from inside the shop.

"No, stop!" Cried out a voice, followed up what seems to be a stabbing sound.

"Eeek, please don't!" Screamed another voice, then followed up with the sound of a slash and a falling body.

Neptune peeked in the store, and there she found IF handling two blood-stained knives as the shopkeepers lie dead on the floor. Without wasting a moment, IF turned around and ran out of the shop. Neptune stood just outside the store with the camouflage on and observed the carnage that happened in the room, as she was unsure of how the camouflage worked or if there were ways to be detected.

In the brief moment that IF dashed outside the store though, Neptune looked over and caught the hazy red eyes that IF had, and immediately knew it was another case of mind control. Shortly after, Neptune felt the batteries for the camouflage device run out and she was clearly visible again. However, it mattered little because everybody in the store was dead anyway. Making the most of this expedient situation, Neptune began to pick out whatever she wanted from the shop. The few things Neptune looted from the small shop were a Combat Knife, a small Sickle, some batteries, and a few parts fix and augment her bow.

"(Hey, pick up solid pair of gauntlets too,)" Kurome commanded.

"(Why? I don't really need them.)"

"(It's for me. If I ever have to take control for you, I'd want to be able to punch something safely. Unless you want to carry a Megaphone around.)"

"(Hm, they do have Megaphones around, but... oh fine,)" Neptune responded as she picked out a good pair of gauntlets with metal on the backside, so that punches would really hurt. After equipping the gauntlets, Neptune began to leave the shop when she heard the sound of police stopping by and surrounding the area.

Neptune found herself cornered within the small shop, and not wanting to battle and kill her nation's people, she picked up a few smoke bombs behind the counter and threw them near the entrance. Quickly replacing the batteries in the camouflage device, Neptune slipped right past the police and went in the same direction that she saw IF run off as she pulled her hood over her head.

"(Things have certainly gotten more serious now hasn't it?)" Kurome said, rather enjoying the chaos that was going around in Gamindustri.

"(Yeah it has, works to my advantage though. The more I fight, the more I remember how I used to do things,)" Neptune replied, following IF's trail to see where she would be heading at this hour.

From above overhead, Neptune heard a blast go off, and looking upwards, she was surprised to see the figure of Purple Sister fly off into the direction of Lastation. Of course, she had thought that Nepgear had noticed her and IF running through Planeptune, but seeing her head off to Lastation could only mean that Noire had begun to retrieve Uni and Nepgear was probably going there to help. Neptune smiled a bit as there was less risk that she would be seen by people that would recognise her.

Continuing to followed IF from a safe distance, Neptune eventually arrived at Planeptune's Golden Summit, and she saw IF hurry into the edifice. There was no need to follow IF closely while she was at this place, because it was obvious that the dungeon would be the final destination. After waiting a short while so IF does not suspect of being followed, Neptune entered the Golden Summit and went right to the secret tile with the teleportation on the ground.

Once inside the dungeon, Neptune noticed that the gates were all unlocked and opened, clearly indicating that Nepgear and some other party members had cleared through the dungeon already. What was new was that there were fresh corpses of dead Planeptune guards, very evident by the work of IF.

"(It looks like Histoire got people here to try and gather up all the equipment of this Human Ranch,)" Kurome noted, seeing some walls being torn apart and others had explosives.

"(Yeah, but little good it does with more personnel dead. But Iffy seems to be really focused on getting here for something, I can only imagine what horrors await,)" Neptune replied as she walked along the first floor to find more dead people.

Descending down next floor, Neptune finally saw IF's figure from far away, struggling against more Planeptune guards. While it was impressive for IF to travel down here all alone, even she could not overpower all the guards here by herself. Thinking that it would be best to see what IF was going to do, Neptune reluctantly shot a few arrows from her bow and assisted IF from faraway, crippling the guards as IF got the upper hand and killed everybody she could see. Afterwards, IF gotten up and looked around, as if noticing that somebody had helped her from behind but saw nothing.

Neptune, using the camouflage device, followed IF closely from behind and walked towards the end of the hall, where IF turned left and went to the end of the corridor. From here, Neptune saw the Planeptune guard team had dug out the wall at the end to reveal a secret chamber, which IF quickly ran into. Being very cautious, Neptune waited just outside the wall and listened. What she heard from sounds of glass bottles moving around as well as storage units opened. After awhile, all Neptune could hear was the sound of gulping from inside the room. Peeking inside, Neptune saw IF drinking from the bottles that were in the storage, with nothing too unusual.

"(She's just drinking from those bottles?)" Neptune noted, as IF did nothing else but drink bottle after bottle.

"(Those bottles look like water, I saw them in the other prison at Lowee, but I wonder...)" Kurome responded, noting that with the amount of bottles being kept in secret cannot possibly be just water.

Afterwards, IF had a violent coughing fit and Neptune watched as IF slowly regained her composure, but the eyes of the Guild Member glowed with red and eventually snapped her head towards where Neptune was standing. Without hesitation, IF threw one of her knives in Neptune's direction and managed to hit the left sleeve of Neptune's dark coloured jacket into the wall. IF then rushed forward with knife in her other hand to attack while Neptune reacted with a kick to IF's chin to avoid a direct hit. Needing to get out of the tight spot quickly, Neptune tugged on the pinned sleeve until it ripped and ran back into the open area of the prison.

"(Looks like she can actually see us even if we have that device... Whatever she was drinking must be causing those violent reactions,)" Kurome said, seeing the violent reaction to IF after consuming whatever was in the bottle.

"(Hm, when this is over I am going to take a good luck inside that area...)" Neptune thought as she turned off the camouflage to conserve battery and readied her bow for battle against crazed IF.

Having experience from dealing with the feral Uni earlier, Neptune was able to read IF's attacks and evade. After several failed strikes by IF, Neptune countered with her knife with a slash right across IF's arm. As expected though, IF did not even so much flinch at the injury and instead roared with anger and began to flail more wildly at Neptune. Neptune got down and swiped IF's feet and knocked the maker down before shooting a few paralytic arrows at her in an effort to disable her. However, IF got right back up and did not even slow down a single bit, showing the paralysis to be completely ineffective.

"(Just what in the world is going on, whatever IF drank seems to allow her to use share power, the stolen shares specifically,)" Neptune thought, even seeing the wound she inflicted on IF earlier recover.

"(It would appear as if somebody is trying to destroy Gamindustri from within... ever think of allying with them?)" Kurome suggested.

"(That would eventually put Nepgear in danger, so no,)" Neptune responded as she made a quick movement forward and swung her sickle downwards, digging into IF's leg just above the knee, which caused enough pain to bring pause to IF.

With the brief moment in hesitation for IF, Neptune immediately shot an iron arrow right through IF in her left leg, causing her to fall. To be sure that there will not be another ambush surprise like Black Sister, Neptune got down bound up IF and placed a few debris on top for immobilisation.

"(You still seem to be hesitant to actually kill these morons Nepsy, is it because of your previous attachments?)" Kurome asked, seeing how Neptune mainly ends up restraining her foes rather than killing them.

"(Yes, even though I remember my past and my abilities, my memory makes me hesitate when delivering the final blow. It's all right though, she won't be getting back from this one for awhile...)" Neptune replied as IF screamed but could not move.

"(Shall I help you with putting them out of their misery?)"

"(There's no need, as long as they are out of my way, it's fine. There will always be other opportunities to kill after all. Now, let's take a good look inside here...)" Neptune said as she entered the secret chamber to examine the the contents inside the storage units.

Inside the area, it looked like the storage units acted like a fridge, even though most of them were just a squared shaped light brown block attached the wall. Nevertheless, Neptune picked up one of the bottles from the unit and looked at the label: "FAITH DEW 100% Concentration"

" _Faith Dew_? What is with this naming..." Neptune muttered, completely unamused at the name. Opening the bottle, Neptune whiffed the opening of the bottle and smelled a strangely sweet odour.

"(Something about this Faith Dew is really unnatural, try to see if you can find where they are created,)" Kurome said, seeing that it is definitely not just water by the looks of the drink.

"(Creation... hmm, you did that the right side of these dungeons were likely for slave labour right? Guessing maybe we'll find something on the other end,)" Neptune replied as she went out the chamber and headed towards the end of the right corridor to find some explosives ready to demolish the wall. Making full use of the explosives, Neptune detonated the explosives and revealed another secret chamber on the right side.

Once inside, Neptune saw the something like a lab, along with water filtration units and empty bottles laying around. This area had been kept clean unlike the secret chamber on the left side, so Neptune had to look thoroughly through the drawers and locked closets (that she unlocked with her personal methods) to see whatever she could find out. After searching through all the file spaces, she was about to give up when she noticed a file cabinet had been oddly placed in the back of the room. Upon closer inspection, Neptune was able to move the cabinet away and reveal a secret locked storage unit that was grafted into the wall. Of course, with no way to know the code for unlocking the safe, Neptune just used her weapons as her way of entry into the safe.

Opening the unit, Neptune reached in and took hold of a folder with couple of documents that she quickly looked over. Once she had carefully scanned the contents on the documents, she realised that everything had made sense on what was really going on with Gamindustri.

"(Looks like the enemy was more thorough than I thought. Part of the Faith Dew is water, but...)" Neptune thought, understanding what the prisoners here were given to drink, but she also noted the method that the Faith Dew was created, which was the same way she created Nep Bull.

"(This also connects together nicely with that production plant as well...)" Kurome said, linking what she sees here with some earlier memories.

"(Production plant? Where was that?)"

"(When you fought the CPU Candidate of Lastation, I looked through your peripheral vision and saw the types of machines running as well as some of the products there.)"

"(I see... it does all tie together nicely, especially _this_ ,)" Neptune pointed out, looking towards the corner of the document with the broken heart with half being red and the other half being yellow.

"(That symbol, belongs to the ASIC organisation doesn't it?)"

"(Yes, it says their formal name is now _Arforian Cult_ , realistically ASIC should have been crushed beyond recovery years back, but...)"

"(The Gamindustri re-write, I made sure Arfoire was alive again, but it looks like she was hiding this entire time just to make her move now.)"

"(Yes, and that would make sense why these Arforkians are always one step ahead. Their name also makes sense, I haven't seen too many of the actual cult members, mostly just people they influenced from the nations.)"

"(What now, are you going to become the hero and save Gamindustri?)"

"(I once did say that I am the protagonist, but... those days are over. However, fighting Arfoire and killing her again will probably be fun. I will just think of this as helping Nepgear if nothing else. But in order to challenge Arfoire, I will have to make sure I am ready. These past battles have shown me that I won't win on tactics alone. I think it would be helpful to go Leanbox for now, Uranus always threw me in _that_ place to train... as much I hated it along with her too.)"

With all that said, Neptune went back to the previously screaming IF, who had calmed down just a little bit now. Reaching down and taking one of the cellphones, Neptune made a quick text message to Nepgear and Compa:

" **IF will not last much longer at this rate, come to Planeptune's Human Ranch as soon as you can.** "

With that, Neptune left the phone next to IF and left the dungeon through the teleportation tile at the end of the hallway beyond the scrap heap of the CPU Breaker. Once back outside the Golden Summit, Neptune began to piece everything together as what was really happening in Gamindustri:

"(So, this Faith Dew is actually not mind control on the people, but rather a strange addictive substance that basically misdirects the faith of people to Arfoire instead because the Faith Dew arouses the desires of need. At the same time, because of the way it is produced and constructed, the people do have access to the stolen shares that Arfoire has and could in theory activate something like HDD form. Not only that, but it looks like not even CPUs are immune to the drug's effects, Uni being the main example,)" Neptune reviewed, having identified some of the contents of the paper from earlier.

"(Yes, and with the few production centres they have hidden around, they also have rigged hardware and spread other malware online as well, which further deviates the faith of the people to Arfoire, who they have no idea they are unconsciously 'worshipping',)" Kurome added.

"(These are tough times to be a CPU, but... its funny. If I was still acting as a CPU, I would be lazy, playing games and eating pudding. Yet, here I am working to stop some of this in my own way...)"

 **Later that night in Planeptune**

Nepgear was flying back to Planeptune at full speed. She was glad to see that Uni was alive although horrified at the state in which she was retrieved. Still, she could not stay at Lastation for long when she got numerous messages from Planeptune with terror attacks as well as a strange message from IF's phone. She had called Compa to understand what was going on, but Compa was not discharged from the hospital yet and all that was known is IF escaped and murdered a doctor.

Before Nepgear could go to the hidden prison where IF supposedly is, she had to drop by at one district within Planeptune after a reported bombing. Landing in front of the bombing area, Nepgear looked around and saw that she was the very first person here, the inhabitants of Planeptune had only reported the bombing but the police forces were too busy occupied with investigations of murder at both the hospital and one of the weapon shops.

Nepgear immediately recognised the shop that had been bombed, it was _Chu-Ko SHOP_ with the sign barely kept intact. Rushing in, she looked around and saw the damage, but worst of all, she saw Chuko by herself laying down on the floor.

"Chuko! Are you all right!?" Nepgear said as she picked up the injured mouse.

"I am all right... Somebody came into our store earlier, but I don't recognise her due to the dark clothing. But after impatiently asking Warechu to go with her somewhere and we refused, there was a burst of light and then this is how my shop came to be..." Chuko explained, still dazed from the explosion.

"Goodness, I'll get you help so just hold on for now," Nepgear replied as she called back to the basilicom for Histoire to spare any personnel for securing the shop, as she prepared to depart to where IF is. "(Running a nation by myself is much harder than I anticipated, where are you Neptune?)"


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Providence**

A week has passed since the bombing incidents in Planeptune and Lastation. Both Uni and IF were retrieved safely to their home nations while the active CPUs and CPU Candidates had uncovered the horrible truth behind the rapidly dropping shares with the Faith Dew and production of rigged hardware.

With knowledge of the threat, the goddesses scoured all of Gamindustri for any illegal operations by what appears to be another incarnation of ASIC. All four of the prisons under the Golden Summits were cleared, as well as the remote factory that Uni was found in. However, despite their best efforts, shares have continued to drop as the Arforians switched to a new strategy of using mobile camps across the land to avoid detection.

There was also the mystery of a mysterious caller who had graciously told the locations of the injured Uni and IF, but with the current crisis going on, Noire had no resources to spare for looking into this low priority mission. Noire had thought it could be related to her missing scout after a bombing incident, but even with the retrieved ID card from the Inn, she had no idea how the scout mysteriously appeared and disappeared within the small time period.

Meanwhile, Nepgear was taking a quick break at Planeptune. After the series of bombing attacks a week ago in Planeptune, things have been relatively peaceful. Compa had gotten discharged from the hospital with no serious injuries since she refrained from drinking the Faith Dew while imprisoned, and having some time she began to tend to IF and Uni while figuring out a detoxification process for the Faith Dew's effects.

Nepgear yawned, having taken care of some paper work and settling into a brief period of silence with Gamindustri, and despite not having complete peace just yet, she was just thankful for a short respite.

"Hey, what's up Gearsy!" Said a voice from behind Nepgear, making the CPU Candidate jump up from her seat.

"What the goodness! Uzume, when did you return?" Nepgear asked as she settled down.

"Just a little while ago, I went travelling with the other Nepsy and trying out lots of good food. But then she started to feel sick awhile ago and we got back here to get her treated, and that's when I learned that it was a growing problem, and when I asked Histoire about it, well... she told me everything. I just wanted to check out how you're holdin up."

"Oh, yeah... there had been so much that happened in the last two weeks, and we're not in the best of shape either. I also found out that fulfilling the actual duties as the CPU is harder than I thought," Nepgear replied, having dealt with some rather complicated issues in the last little while.

 **Far away from Leanbox, near the volcano...**

Neptune exited her small tent that she had set up far away from civilisation, since the idea of being a scout for Lastation had some obvious flaws. Neptune also chose her base of operations close to Leanbox's volcano because it was where Uranus put her through the harshest training back in the days, even though Neptune had just woken up after dreaming a nightmare from her memories:

 _Nepgear was tied up in a rope and hanged from a beam just right next to the metal door from the inner part of the volcano. The rope that tied Nepgear was just an ordinary rope, and if lowered enough the heat from the lava will burn right through it._

 _Meanwhile, Neptune and Uranus stood just next to the beam as instructions were given,_

 _"Go Neptune, kill everybody that is associated with Leanbox, and make sure no one gets out alive. Make one mistake and you know what happens to Nepgear. Of course, this rope is not going to hold forever either, better hurry..." Uranus said as she smiled sadistically as she had control over the rope holding onto Nepgear's life._

 _Without as much of a response, Neptune looked toward the open area with a small detachment of Leanbox soldiers with some unarmed civilians. Ignoring Uranus' taunt, Neptune only gripped her bow tightly as she heard a small whimper from Nepgear on high as she set out for her task..._

"(What a pleasant dream...)" Kurome taunted, as if trying to make things worse.

"(Let's not talk about that... Still, with all these memories revolving around this world, I have no idea what I am going to do after all this is over...)" Neptune responded, not thinking too much on the past while looking forward to the future.

"(You could always let me handle things. I would first dispose of Leanbox's CPU for you...)"

"(That's the last thing I would want you to do!)"

"(What's wrong with that? I _know_ you have a small budding hatred for her, with all the years that she keeps trying to take your sister, and even when you told your sister to help her out of concern that one time, she just takes it for granted and-)"

"(Yeah yeah, just... be quiet...)" Neptune interrupted as she tuned out Kurome to focus on her day. In the past week as Neptune began to hone her skills, she noticed Kurome's growing presence and slowly more menacing attitude, putting her on the alert.

Walking into the volcano to polish off her skills again, Neptune noticed something very different today as she entered. Even though the Arforians had been more mobile to avoid confrontation, it appeared that they had temporarily settled down inside the volcano over night with the intent to hide something.

Turning into the carved hole on the wall, Neptune went into the volcanic rocky areas and observed the few security units around the area. Knowing that they would not leave the set area, Neptune used her special armour penetration arrows and shot the machines in their crucial parts to dismantle and disable them. Walking through the rocky areas, Neptune went up the ramp and force opened her own personalised entrance through the two heavy doors and into the second area.

As expected, there were people from Leanbox wandering around the rocky area, mostly under the influence of the drug while there were only two people dressed in dark gray robes. Scanning the area, Neptune noted that there were explosive barrels conveniently placed around the area and also at the end was something big kept under wrap by a large white blanket.

Seeing the golden opportunity, Neptune prepared a makeshift fire arrow with paper and fire, then shot it towards one of the barrels, which caused a chain reaction of explosions. In that moment, panic arose with all the people in the area, with the two cult leaders trying to keep everything under control. Neptune immediately hid herself with the camouflage device and ran down the man-made ramp on the side as a torrent of drugged Leanbox denizens ran towards the exit in fear.

"(You should have some fun with this chance Nepsy,)" Kurome suggested, as Neptune feel herself lose control. With the spare parts taken from the Planeptune shop, Neptune's bow had been customised to fire her energy arrows rapidly, and Kurome raised the bow and began to unleash the storm of arrows at the vulnerable people of Leanbox.

"(Hey, wait a minute!)" Neptune said, as she could only see from her vision of the carnage unfolding as arrows massacred the unsuspecting people and eventually shooting through to the two cult leaders as well. When Neptune finally regained control of her body, she was the only person alive in the middle of a field of corpses.

"(How's that? Just like when you completed the mission to save your sister.)"

"(This isn't what... oh never mind, just stop doing that out of nowhere...)" Neptune replied, having been caught off guard several times as Kurome seemed to be able to be in control for longer than just a few moments.

Stepping over all the dead bodies, Neptune went and removed the giant white cloth draped over a box-like object to reveal a storage unit. The storage was unlocked, so Neptune accessed it immediately and took out a small device that was similar to the camouflage device except with predominantly white colour and a power symbol engraved on the front cover.

"Hmm, another one of these things, I wonder what this one does..." Neptune said as she activated the device and a bright light had engulfed her and she felt that she was floating in the air. Since the camouflage was hiding her appearance completely, Neptune could not see what was going on with herself except that she did feel some rather strange equipment that was keeping her floating.

Nevertheless, Neptune was not too concerned over the hardware she stole, but here was also a small piece of paper that resembled a map of Gamindustri in the unit as well, but before Neptune could take a good look at the contents, she heard a loud crashing sound behind her. Turning around, she noticed that White Heart and Green Heart had broken into this inner part of the volcano. Not wanting to have her batteries unexpectedly run out and reveal her, Neptune took the map with her and began her leave, and it was here that she noticed she was actually flying.

Once Neptune retreated back to the relative safety of her tent, Neptune turned off the camouflage and carefully observed the new stolen equipment on herself. On her back were long wings going outward in three points and also coloured white with golden edges and a shade of blue in the middle parts; in addition, on her legs were high armoured shoes with the same colour scheme and pattern.

"(I see... the Arforians had some engineer prowess, trying to replicate HDD...)" Neptune noted, seeing her new mechanical equipment felt just like the ones she had when she transformed into Purple Heart.

"(More importantly, do those designs remind you of anybody?)" Kurome said, noticing the pattern and colours right away.

"(Yes they do... wait, is this...)"

"(Indeed, the camouflage device you have in that colour-it was made when somebody dismantled Steamax, and this transformation device and its parts were likely made from parts forcibly ripped from Affimojas.)"

"(Hm, the Arforians must have some serious firepower to take those two down... Well, at least this is mine now. Anyway, I think I know where to go with this...)" Neptune thought as she looked at the map she took from earlier, and she saw that it was just an ordinary map of Gamindustri, except in the middle of the continent within the mountains there is a huge castle drawn in.

Not waiting any longer, Neptune used the camouflage with her new equipment, and then began to fly towards the mountain range. It was a strangely familiar feeling for Neptune, who had not relied on her HDD form to fly across the land in the longest time since she ran away from Planeptune. Still, it was advantageous for Neptune since she knew how to manoeuvre the flight quite well as she guided herself from Leanbox all the way through until she settled down at the mountain range.

After a brief walk forward on the rather desolate rocky place, Neptune arrived at the supposed location of the castle. However, there was a huge miasma fog surrounding the area and unlike the miasma found within the Golden Summit dungeons, this fog was thicker and obviously poisonous. Seeing the terrain impassable, Neptune withdrew for the time being and flew into Lastation.

Even though she could not report her findings as she did as a scout, Neptune flew to the northern sector and went into an internet cafe. Using the camouflage to sneak past the entrance, Neptune used one of the computers inside to submit an anonymous tip straight to Noire's office.

Afterwards, Neptune infiltrated Lastation's basilicom and got into Noire's office, knowing that the loner CPU has nothing better to do than take a look and work at everything before the day ends. As expected, Noire immediately scheduled a scouting expedition to the surrounding area in the rocky region in the middle of the continent while leading the investigation herself for tomorrow. Knowing that Noire would definitely bring the crucial information back to all the other nations to decide a counteroffensive, Neptune began her leave knowing her task was done for now.

Before leaving the basilicom though, Neptune looked to the left side to Uni's room and saw the CPU Candidate there in bandages as well as Compa with what seems to be an medicine for treating the Faith Dew's effects. Seeing the scene, Neptune was reminded of the times she had to go to Compa to bandage up wounds, bringing a strange feeling of nostalgia.

"(Seems like somebody is feeling a longing for the days past...)" Kurome teased, being wise to Neptune's emotions.

"(Go away,)" Neptune replied, before running out the basilicom and then flying off.

In the days that followed, the four nations planned an elaborate attack for Arfoire's castle, with Histoire having a solution to infiltration. In order to be able to safely break through the castle's defences, Histoire had to prepare a special barrier for protection while inside the castle since there was no doubt that the miasma inside the castle would prevent share power from working.

"It will take me three days to prepare. Everyone, please get ready by that time," Histoire explained as she finished the conference call with all the other nations.

Neptune hid outside the room just beneath the window as she heard Histoire's last conversation. Smiling, she then got ready to do preparations of her own as she flew upwards from her current position.

"(Three days huh, just as expected of her. I need to get ready as well,)" Neptune thought as she landed on the roof of the tower at Planeptune.

"(What else would you need at this time?)" Kurome asked, seeing nothing missing from Neptune's skillset.

"(This is going to be our last battle in this Gamindustri, so we gotta prepare of course...)"

"(Our? Well whatever, if you're going up against Arfoire then make sure you go to that secret part of the library and retrieve that tome,)" Kurome suggested, while Neptune wondered what would be so useful in the golden tome.

Nepgear took a deep breathe after the day of deliberation with everybody else. She was glad that the root cause of the troubles in the past while was discovered and a solution proposed, but she was still worried that through all the chaos Neptune was still missing.

"Now then, it has been a long day, why don't you take a break?" Histoire suggested, seeing Nepgear rather exhausted after all the troubles of the past weeks.

"All right. But... I am still worried about Neptune."

"I have already did all that I could to find her, we will definitely find her once this is all over," Histoire assured, even though she herself was uncertain where Neptune was, and Arfoire's lair actually being the last hope of finding Planeptune's CPU again.

When Nepgear had left the room with Uzume, Histoire was about to start working on her share field to shield the miasma for the upcoming battle, but that is when somebody else came into the room to interrupt her.

"It must be hard to keep that face up isn't it?" Asked the newcomer into the room.

Histoire turned around and saw Leanbox's oracle, and she was tempted to throw her guest out but decided not to. "What do you need?"

"Com'on, there's no need to take that tone. I can see that you're stressed all over these days. Even if you have work to do, won't hurt to relax even just a little right?" Chika said.

"I am surprised to see you have so much time to travel all the way here in the midst of everything that's going on," Histoire replied, ignoring Chika's last comment.

"I do have my own work, yes, as recently a large group of people from my nation were found in the volcano all dead. Still, at this point I am more worried about you in that state."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to just be yourself. I know you've been trying to keep face these past weeks and keeping calm for Nepgear, but it's not healthy to bottle up everything to yourself."

Histoire turned around, she knew that Chika was right as she always tried to keep herself together despite the circumstances. Still, Chika saw right through her stoic face and right into her sombre feelings and being choked by worry. It was true that while Neptune had caused many headaches for Histoire, this is something she would have never wished for, as she had not felt the same way since the last confrontation with ASIC.

Chika drew closer but Histoire was silent, the people had always relied on Histoire, but there had not been too many people that Histoire could confide with. Resigning herself, eased up a bit and allowed herself to be just herself. Right now she was just Histoire and not the oracle of Planeptune. Slowly, she accepted the events unfolding and she found herself burying into Chika while silently crying. Everything she had said to Neptune she had not mean to say, but the consequences were heavy and now all she has is regrets.

"I'm sorry..." Chika whispered, holding Histoire close, despite being told that it was not her fault, she still knew she had responsibility after what happened that night.

 **Three (Histoire) Days later...**

The party of CPUs, Candidates, Uzume, and Histoire were gathered up just in front view of the castle surrounded by fog. Naturally, Uni was absent due to injury and Neptune's whereabouts were still unknown. They also could not afford to bring anybody along either, as shares were nearing critical levels and most guild members and basilicom staff trying to mitigate damage by the Arforian's counterfeit products. Even with their efforts to dismantle Human Ranches and production plants, there had still been too many products from the Arforians in circulation for shares to recover naturally.

With all preparations ready, Histoire held up a small light sphere and a barrier enveloped everybody. As long as they stayed within the barrier they would be safe against the miasma, which had a very unique property to nullify share power. Once near the perimetre of the castle, everybody directed a small bit of share power and charged through the fog and broke the barrier to Arfoire's castle.

"We're finally in here. They were pretty thorough in hiding their main base," Blanc noted, seeing the grand castle standing tall all in shades of gray to blend in with the mountain range around the area even without the fog.

"Indeed, and their architecture is rather familiar as well," Vert said, noticing the roof and structural shapes to be similar to Leanbox designs.

"It must be with all the prisoners they have held this time, we need to stop this once and for all," Nepgear said, determined to bring down Arfoire again and hoping to find Neptune somewhere within the castle.

Of course, unknown to Nepgear, a camouflaged figure was standing right behind the party and observing them while standing still. Without wasting another moment, the party went right through the tall front doors of the castle, which had been kept wide open due to the natural defence from the fog.

Once inside, the place was surprisingly clean with red carpets and marble floors with white furnishings fitting for royalty. There was a barrier directly at the opposite end of the front entrance, and on the four corners of the main hall was a wide door. Naturally, the intrusion had not gone unnoticed, as swarms of people came rushing in from all four corners of the room, all of them guild members from the four nations.

"Waa, there's so many of them..." Rom said, noticing the army Arfoire still had.

"There are people from Lowee here as well. Whoever did this is gonna be in some pain when I get to them!" Ram said, readying herself for battle when Blanc also stepped up.

"If you can, try to spare their lives. They are still just ordinary humans..."

With the CPUs being naturally stronger than ordinary humans, most of the human soldiers fell and not too many had died, but the sight of many unconscious bodies in one place looked repulsive to the party. Still, the party pressed on to explore the four rooms on the corner of this hall.

Each room was conveniently colour coded to correspond with each nation and its people drugged under the effects of Faith Dew. After the initial confrontation in the main hall though, the smaller chambers did not have as many people to fight and the party was able to retrieve a Blade, Revolver, Bow, and Spear from the rooms. All of these weapons were unusable as they looked more like artefacts, though Noire wondered if the Bow was related to the person who left all the arrows in Uni.

Returning to the main hall, all four relics reacted and when placed together, pointed a light towards the northern barrier and dissolved that part of the wall to reveal a stairway.

"Hm, this had been rather easy so far. I can't help but think that we're running into a trap," Noire said, thinking that Arfoire's lair should have much more security if nothing else. Surely enough, just as Noire had said that, a giant purple mouse running down in a complete rage, as well as having completely dull red eyes.

"It's _him_ again. But what's with that size?" Uzume asked as she recognised the giant enraged Warechu.

"Not always, but I do remember Chuko saying that somebody abducted him some time ago," Nepgear informed as she readied her sword for battle.

Being outnumbered, Warechu was struggling to connect his attacks. However, he was acting on instinct and never reacted to pain being dealt to him, and in one motion he spread out a huge wave of mist, growing even bigger in size. Even with Histoire's barrier, the goddesses were weakened as Warechu continued a relentless assault. Having been backed into a corner by such a savage move, everybody tried to defend themselves as the giant mouse neared.

"I've got an idea! Can somebody launch me at him?" Uzume asked, seeing they were out of options.

"Are you out of your mind? He's not responding to any of our attacks," Noire said, seeing how crazy the mouse is.

"No worries, I got this covered, just give me boost!"

With that said, Nepgear and Noire waited until Warechu got closer and then together they launched Uzume up high and once near the head, Uzume took out her Megaphone and yelled as loud as she could into the ears of Warechu. The loud sound had stunned the mouse enough that the others rushed in for a counterattack and successfully defeated Warechu, reverting him back into a smaller size and unconscious.

"It's true then, they really are using our stolen share powers," Blanc noted, seeing the sudden increase in power from Warechu similar to their HDD form.

"I never imagined something like this was possible, we should get going before something scarier shows up," Uzume said while leading the charge up the stairs, and leaving Warechu for the time being.

At the same time, Neptune had been loosely following the party from behind, but she took her time with searching the rooms in the four corners of the castle to look for anything useful. Of course, there was nothing suspicious or useful in the rooms, but with some of the furnishings and equipment left behind, Neptune had realised something.

"As I thought, this is all a trap, guess I better get going," Neptune said as she ran out of one of the rooms and into the main hall again. Ignoring the passed out Warechu, Neptune ran up the stairs and looked into what was going on in the upper chamber.

The colours were still mostly the same marble white, but with purple carpets leading into what appears to be a throne. On both sides of the throne there were two statues of Arfoire.

"Ah, I see you lot have made it in here..." Called out the lady-like voice of Arfoire from the throne. As typical of Arfoire, the old hag had a witch hat and purple makeup.

"So you're the shithead who's been causing so much trouble for us," Blanc said, giving Arfoire a death glare.

"Trouble? I would like to say enlightenment. You see how everybody _loves_ the Faith Dew I created."

"Everybody who drank that has become addicted to it, how can that possibly be good?" Nepgear stated, remember seeing the effects on her friends.

"That's just a minor detail my dear. From what you have all seen, the people certainly like what I offer them much better than what you CPUs can offer them."

"You're insane. You just take what was ours in the first place, and you also discard people when you don't need them anymore!" Noire accused, remembering the state she found Uni in at the production factory.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I always dispose of my worn out tools properly, but if you're talking about that pathetic CPU Candidate, then I assure you I have nothing to do with that, ahhaha."

"Grrr, you better prepare yourself!" Noire angrily responded at Arfoire's comment.

"Such impatience, it is not my time yet, _they_ should be more than enough for you flies for now," Arfoire smiled as she said this, before the four statues in the back started to break apart and golden light seeping out of them.

"What is that?" Uzume said as the light from the statues glowed even brighter, before exploding out of the statues all four members of the Gold Third in their Golden Forms, but they also had spiked collars on their neck and joints.

"I hope you guys would keep me entertained, it would be bad if you died here, wouldn't it?" Arfoire mocked as she sat down and watched the scene unfold.

"Ah, isn't that C-Sha? Why is she and all the others working for that old hag?" Ram asked.

"They don't seem to be under the influence of that drug, but..." Blanc said as she observed that all of the Gold Third not only had empty eyes but their skin also had a clear red tint.

"I took my time to research the past battles and events of Gamindustri, and I made sure to gather only the best warriors for defeating the CPUs. I believe they would be more than enough to handle all of you while providing me with the greatest entertainment," Arfoire bragged, relaxing as she was going to enjoy seeing friends fight each other.

"So that's why Arfoire was always one step ahead, she already had the B-Sha and the others under her control from the start..." Nepgear realised, noticing that this Arfoire had planned quite far ahead, operating a bit differently than the Deity of Sin she defeated from years back.

In order to match the strength of the Gold Third, everybody had entered their HDD forms. From that point onwards, it was an all out brawl between the goddesses and Gold Third. Neither side was prevailing over one another, even though the CPUs having advantage in numbers, the Gold Third was powered by Arfoire's stolen shares and held their own.

During this time, Arfoire merely looked to the side at right where Neptune was and lifted a finger motion. Before Neptune could react, she heard a rolling sound and jumped backwards as a large stone wall closed the entrance into the upper chamber, blocking the view completely. At the same time, Neptune heard a chilling scream from downstairs as Warechu revived once more into his gigantic form except this time he was completely red in colour.

"(It was clear that she saw you, and you ran right into her trap)" Kurome commented, seeing how the camouflage had clear flaws.

"(I don't need you to tell me that, right now though I have a pest to deal with,)" Neptune retorted as she dodged a quick strike from Warechu and fired off a few arrows that merely bounced off and made the rat even more angry.

While Neptune was kept busy on the other side of the door, the battles between the CPUs and Gold Third continued to rage on. Unfortunately, due to the lower shares of the CPUs, their processor pieces began to crack and wear out in battle. To make matters worse, the CPU's formation was easily broken due to being limited within Histoire's barrier.

Blanc, Rom, and Ram executed their Dry Ravine to start a counteroffensive, trying diving the Gold Third into two groups. However, C-Sha charged through with a heavy hit on Blanc followed by an elbow that knocked her to the ground, disengaging her HDD. Ram and Rom tried to follow up but B-Sha had intercepted Ram and fired off a full blast of fire with her bazooka as Ram was steadily pushed back by the wall of fire until she collapsed on the ground without her HDD. Meanwhile, S-Sha cut across Rom in 8 different directions until she fell down as well.

Vert managed to hold off K-Sha from the previous assault with her Sylhet Spear, but was quickly surrounded on all four sides. As the Gold Third closed in, Vert managed to defend herself from all four directions, but at the cost of all her processors breaking into pieces and her HDD form. Taking the small opening, Noire charged in with her Infinite Slash and managed to break down the Gold Forms. However, even without the transformation, the Gold Third continued their relentless assault as Noire was promptly knocked down as well.

Jumping into the front was Uzume, as Nepgear had committed to defending Histoire's position during the battle. Even with her HDD form, Uzume found herself overpowered by the savage instincts of the Gold Third until she voluntarily disengaged HDD and dropped to her knees.

"No, you guys, please stop this..." Uzume breathed as she was slow to get up.

"It's useless, they only heed my voice," Arfoire said, looking at the amusing battle.

"We have been through something like this before, this won't stop us..."

"Go ahead, see what your empty words can do," Arfoire replied, as the members of the Gold Third proceeded to beat up Uzume.

"Uzume!" Nepgear yelled, trying to intervene, but Uzume signaled her to stop.

"I am fine, just make sure Histoire is all right," Uzume insisted as she tried to withstand the beating.

"Uzume, don't push yourself too hard. You will die at this rate," Histoire warned, seeing the gruesome beating that Uzume was taking on.

"This is nothing, I will definitely survive this. And afterwards, I am going to find Nepsy!" Uzume bragged, while standing resolute as B-Sha stood in front of her ready to fire off an intensive blaze from the bazooka.

"Do it," Arfoire commanded nonchalantly from her throne, having gotten tired of hearing Uzume's words.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: The End of Neptune**

Neptune ran down the stairs from the enraged Warechu seeing as the tight space was working against her. However, once she was back down in the main hall, she saw that Arfoire had not only revitalised Warechu but all the drugged guild members as well. Being surrounded on both sides, Neptune quickly jumped into the air and fired off exploding arrows that caused a diversion among the crowd of people and slipped past back to near the entrance of the castle to face the enemy head on.

Warechu did not miss a step with the diversion though, and already ran forward and swung down with his hand to attack. Neptune, barely reacting was able to block the hit but heard a loud crack on her bow. Sliding through the floor and away from Warechu, Neptune managed to reposition herself, but was caught by two guild members as Warechu began to attack again.

Thinking quickly, Neptune forced herself downwards while using all her strength to throw her two captors up towards Warechu, who then smashed both of them in between his hands. Needing to end the battle quickly before expending too much energy, Neptune took out a bottle of paralysing poison and coated her knife, then as Warechu came near she gambled on a ruse.

"Hey look, it's Compa!" Neptune said while pointing behind the giant rat. Of course, Warechu did not actually look back, but he did hesitate for a single moment, where Neptune was able to jump up and strike Warechu directly in the forehead, disabling the giant rat from moving.

As Neptune picked up her bow again though, there was still a mob of drugged people rushing at her. With the earlier attack from Warechu breaking the special compartment on her bow, Neptune could no longer use her rapid fire, and so she slide through the floor and knocked down as many people as possible while running towards the stair way again. At that point, there seemed to be a calming wave of energy emitting straight from the throne room, and after a brief moment, the entire mob was lifted from their haze and fell down unconscious.

"This feeling... Uzume must have used her powers. If she had to resort to this, then they're in serious trouble," Neptune said, remembering the last time Uzume used her powers was to save her and the other CPUs from Kurome's delusions. No doubt this time it was to save the Gold Third from Arfoire's influence this time, and so Neptune finally ran up the stairs again and inspected the stone wall there, Arfoire had not simply closed the door but sealed it off with magic as well.

Neptune then reached in her pocket for the golden tome in order to find a counter spell for Arfoire's seal. After a few moments, she was able to dispel Arfoire's seal and melt through an entrance for herself. Walking into the room, Neptune saw that it was only Nepgear who was still transformed fighting against Arfoire by herself. Uzume had seemed to expend all of her powers in freeing the Gold Third from Arfoire's grip and everybody else was too injured or unconscious to keep fighting.

"You are not bad, and I commend you and everyone for making it this far, but..." Arfoire said as she smiled sadistically seeing all the CPUs barely standing back up after the confrontation with the Gold Third. At once, flicked two of her fingers and released an energy sphere, which Nepgear evaded easily.

However, Arfoire had never intended to hit Nepgear, as her blast travelled right through the middle and right into contact with Histoire. The attack did not harm Histoire, but the barrier that was keeping everybody safe from the anti-share energy around the castle was broken. In the next moment, the CPUs felt their energy leave them as Nepgear was forced out of HDD and dropped down on the floor.

"Shit!" Blanc said, as she and everybody else struggled to stand up. Even though being exposed to the miasma had no damaging effects, all share power was nullified.

"And this is the extent of your feeble power, I think I am going to have some fun disposing of you all," Arfoire said while raising her spear to strike Nepgear.

"No...!" Uzume said as she could not move without her strength to help Nepgear.

At the same time though, Uzume felt a giant flow of energy fly past her from behind, and separating into four separate strikes that landed on Arfoire's arms and legs, pushing her back.

"Ugh, no...!" Arfoire shouted, as she looked in the direction of the stone door that closed earlier to see a figure standing there.

Surprised at the sudden attack, everybody turned towards the entrance of the room to see a camouflage device wear off and revealing a person with white and light blue thigh high socks, white and purple parka with the purple hoodie over her head and holding a giant mechanical bow.

"Neptune!" Nepgear shouted, a mixed of surprise and relief seeing her sister show up at such a time.

"Hm, you're far more uglier than I imagined Arfork," Neptune stated, still analysing the situation.

"So you finally decided to show yourself, no matter, I will-" Arfoire managed to say before getting caught by surprise as Neptune charged right in front of her with knife in hand.

Arfoire barely managed to avoid the knife attack by jumping out of the way and going around behind Neptune. However, before Arfoire could attack, Neptune already instinctively threw her sickle backwards and it sunk into Arfoire's skin.

"Aaaagh!" Arfoire screeched, having been surprised by the sudden attack as she removed the sickle and broke it apart.

"What incredible speed, that is unexpected from Neptune," Vert said, noticing the movement and weapon of choice were very unnatural for Neptune.

It was a big surprise to everybody with Neptune appearing, but even more surprising was her perfect reaction time to dodge the now enraged Arfoire's attacks while landing some effective counterattacks. When Arfoire lunged with her spear, Neptune ducked down and shot an iron arrow right into Arfoire. Following up with a kick, Arfoire was launched into the air as Neptune jumped up high and unleashed a barrage of arrows to force down Arfoire into the ground.

"How can you be this strong? You're just a CPU reject," Arfoire blurted out, surprised at how much she was being pushed back despite having most of Gamindustri's shares.

"Hmph, too bad for you, I have been fighting against people with the stolen shares in the last while, disabling them has almost become my specialty," Neptune replied, while holding her bow against Arfoire.

"What does that mean..." Noire thought outloud, coming to the realisation that if Arfoire did not know what happened with Uni, it was Neptune's doing.

"Yes Noire, if you were wondering who made that phone call awhile back, that was me. That mess was thanks to Arfy and her Faith Dung though."

"(What... Neptune did all that? That's not like her at all...)" Noire thought, trying to process what Neptune confirmed to her.

"That's _Faith Dew_ you idiot! I will not allow you to make a mockery of me!" Arfoire said in response, irritated at Neptune butchering her and the drug's name. At once, Arfore broke free from the arrows and flew up in the air. Gathering all the shares she had, Arfoire glowed an intense dark red aura and began to transform.

Everybody had backed off a distance as Arfoire's transformation made the air heavy in the room as well as pulsing waves of energy from her innermost being. As the glow from Arfoire dimmed, the villain was revealed to have four black feathered wings along with her face in a deeper shade of purple along with black sclera and two red horns in place of her witch hat. Arfoire's body also had black and red scales along with a spiked tail that had a three-point end, and her hands were in the shape of metallic claws. As for her spear, it had doubled in size with the interior main looking like flesh while the exterior had numerous sharp teeth.

"I've never seen such a form before..." Blanc noted as she gathered with Rom while tending to the unconscious and burnt Ram.

"That's the culmination of all the shares she took from us... Neptune!" Nepgear called out to her sister, while Neptune just stood in front of Arfoire not moving at all.

"Don't worry, I will protect you," Neptune said in response as she took aim at Arfoire with an iron arrow.

The arrow only bounced off Arfoire's scale armour with a small dent as the demon witch did not even care to react to the attack. Instead, Arfoire charged forward with her weapon and Neptune barely escaped decapitation and lost her balance.

"Bow down to your God!" Arfoire declared, while emitting a shockwave across the room and everybody was pushed back by the sheer force.

"(This is even worse than your Dark Orange form,)" Neptune thought as she slowly regained her balance.

"(Shouldn't you be focusing on the battle instead of trying to be snide?)" Kurome replied, completely brushing off Neptune's comment.

Neptune began a counteroffensive with energy infused iron arrows, but Arfoire managed to avoid most of the projectiles and only receiving minor dents in her armour. Closing in the distance, Arfoire attacked with her abominable weapon while Neptune side stepped away and thrust forward with the combat knife. One scale from Arfoire's shoulders was broken along with the knife while Arfoire herself shot an energy blast that exploded and Neptune flew halfway across the room right next to Histoire and Uzume.

"Neptune..." Histoire said as she saw Planeptune's CPU get back up after taking a heavy impact.

"Oh, hey there you two," Neptune greeted Histoire and Uzume in the most awkward way possible as she struggled to her feet.

"Oh hi..." Uzume replied, equally as awkward.

"I know this is a very odd way of meeting, but I suppose it would be best to deal with her first..." Neptune responded, pointing at Arfoire, who was walking nearer by the second.

"You honestly think you have a chance at beating me? Against my absolute power, all shall submit!" Arfoire declared and glowed with a crimson aura before firing a large flow of energy into the air, and falling down were condensed energy meteors that were powerful enough to dissolve the ground.

Everybody had frantically move around and also shielding the injured to prevent annihilation, but Arfoire continued her attacks as she held out her weapon and the teeth on the exterior glowed and propelled short red spike shots, most of them aimed at Neptune.

Neptune had managed to deflect most of the projectiles from Arfoire, but was held back as Arfoire did not let up on her attacks. Meanwhile, Nepgear was barely standing trying to deflect the attacks herself but tripped up by one shot that exploded near her. Arfoire, seeing the opportunity, redirected her attacks at Nepgear instead while Neptune was busy.

"(Oh no!)" Neptune thought as the barrage was reaching towards Nepgear.

Neptune took out the second device from her pocket to enable her wings and leg boosters, then flying over quickly, she stood in front of Nepgear. Neptune deflected the flying barrage with her some of her arrows in defence, but Arfoire anticipated this and took aim with a precise shot that pierced right through Neptune's right arm. Dropping her bow, Neptune gritted her teeth at the sudden pain as Arfoire closed the distance between them.

"Neptune!" Nepgear said as she saw Arfoire's imposing form in front of them.

"Both of you can die together," Arfoire said as she aimed to decapitate both goddesses of Planeptune.

"(In the end you never change, but I guess that's just how you always were.)" Kurome said, as Neptune glowed a dark indigo aura as her wound on her arm sealed up and both her eyes and hair darkened.

Reacting quickly, Neptune raised her fist and punched Arfoire in the face directly, interrupting the attack and sending Arfoire back. Afterward, Neptune's colours returned to normal as she regained control. With Arfoire flinching from the last attack, Neptune retrieved her bow and got ready to attack, despite the pain in her arm.

"What was that!?" Uzume said as she looked and felt an eerily familiar presence when Neptune threw her punch.

Going straight into battle again, Neptune flew right above Arfoire and jumped down to kick Arfoire in face and then pulled out another vial to coat one of her arrows with a special poison. Arfoire began to retaliate blindly with projectiles of her own, but Neptune flew off to the side and then readied her aim. Just as Arfoire finally stood up, Neptune let go of her shot that went right to the small vulnerable spot that Neptune broke the scale from earlier. The shot had sunk into Arfoire's skin, but the mad witch only removed the arrow as she tried to continue her assault, except at that moment she began to have trouble breathing.

"Aaaaauuugggghhh..." Arfoire breathed as she slowly dropped to the floor with spasms.

"You're not moving from that spot, I made that heart-stopper poison just for you," Neptune declared, standing over the struggling Arfoire. However, Arfoire did managed to steady herself and get up from the floor, even if very slowly.

"I hate to disappoint you, but if you think _this_ would be enough to stop me, you're too naive!" Arfoire said, looking at Neptune with pure rage in her eyes and ready to fight again.

"I guess you're just stubborn final boss aren't you? Well, good thing I have prepared for this as well," Neptune said in response as she pulled out the golden tome once more and began to chant a spell for defeating Arfoire.

"What, this cannot be...!"

"That tome! Uzume, is that..." Histoire said, faintly recognising the design.

"Yes, that's one of mine... I didn't think it still existed," Uzume responded, surprise to see the tome again after so many years.

"(And with that, the trap is well in place...)" Kurome said, smiling maliciously from inside Neptune's vision, seeing the magic circle form underneath Neptune and another one from Arfoire. Shortly afterwards, the shares stolen by Arfoire began to evaporate out of her body. Arfoire had tried to struggle for her existence, but it was futile as she could barely move and shortly after, a huge crack appeared on Arfoire, then making her explode with the stolen shares of Gamindustri being released back into the air. Without the stolen shares to sustain her, Arfoire screamed as both her body and spirit were burned away.

"Huh, neat. Guess that's the end for Arfoire..." Neptune said, seeing the share energy pouring out from where Arfoire's body used to be. Still, there would have to be plenty of work to be done with restoring the lost shares.

"Hey Nepsy, that tome..." Uzume said, finally in standing condition again.

"Oh this? Yeah, neat thing that you 'made' back in the day. You even created Histy with this too, which was amazing. I can see why you hid it away though, it has power that can easily be abused. Well, maybe I can just drop this one off with you and let it explain everything so I can take my leave a little earlier," Neptune replied.

"What, why are you leaving, Neptune?" Nepgear asked, seeing Neptune was about to leave.

"I don't know, getting rid of Arfoire was my primary goal here, I think other than that I have no real reason to stick around as a CPU or something otherwise, especially after the mess I made."

"But Histoire wasn't sober when she said those things that night," Nepgear reasoned, hoping Neptune would listen.

"Oh I knew that."

"What!?"

"You think I wouldn't catch on? Besides, it doesn't change the fact that what she said was _truth_. That's not all though, I have seen and remembered things that make me ill suited to govern any nation."

"Aren't you exaggerating? This isn't like you..." Nepgear said, finding it unbelievable with what Neptune is saying.

"(Hm, time to go to sleep Nepsy,)" Kurome stated as a dark purple magic circle appeared over Neptune and instantly an indigo aura surrounded her and changed hair and eye colour.

"Huh? Neptune, what's happening?" Nepgear asked, not expecting the sudden change.

"It has been awhile hasn't it, Gearsy, 'Me'..."

"What... you! But how? I was certain I defeated you... what did you do to Nepsy?" Uzume accused, as she was very surprised to see Kurome once more.

"You're not the only one with a special ability you know. While we once shared the power to will dreams into existence, I had a different power once we separated, and that is my existence itself would always persevere no matter what. Of course, all CPUs of Planeptune have something of their own, and you saw it just now with Nepsy's unrivalled killer instinct as an assassin. Now, since Arfoire has been defeated and your pathetic shares are coming back, time for the story of what happened during Uranus' reign that even Histoire doesn't know." Kurome explained, while smiling with Neptune's body.

Meanwhile, Neptune found herself stuck in what seems to be a void with her consciousness floating in the middle, and realised that she had somehow swapped positions with Kurome. Of course, making the most of her time in this state, found how to sift through memories and past events as Kurome did, but that is when she realised something was seriously wrong.

"Wait a minute... This isn't what I was told!" Neptune said to herself inside her own consciousness as she looked through some of Kurome's memories.

"What could possibly have happened?" Nepgear asked, still finding it a big stretch that simple memories would cause the big change in Neptune.

"Listen well and you may understand, for my own powers and this tome confirms all that I am telling you:

 _After I had been sealed, Uranus was made the CPU in my place. It was an unanimous decision, as Planeptune operated differently in that not all the CPUs were strictly born from faith, but sometimes they would be elected. For Uranus though, she had her humble beginnings, just fulfilling the role of a CPU and rising along with the other nations as well. However, her special talent was also quite dangerous like mine, for she had the ability of assimilation._

 _Every time she defeated and killed a foe, she would grow stronger. Eventually, the power changed her to be a ruthless CPU, who killed anybody that disagreed with her. Unlike with me, the people had no choice but to obey, as her powers grew, even her own sword was cursed, and grew to be able to assimilate and kill CPUs by taking their souls. However, she realised that she was unable to take Histoire's power even with her sword and having no other way she had Histoire sealed up with a barrier until she could figure out a solution._

"A cursed sword that can even kill CPUs? Why do I feel so uneasy about that..." Nepgear breathed out, feeling ominous vibe.

" _It gets even better though, as Uranus was not only a tyrant, but she dealt with her subjects with cruelty as well. She regularly used suicide bombers during the console wars with the other nations and even conscripted children on a regular basis._

 _And then one day, a pair of sisters from unknown origins showed up at one of Planeptune's orphanages. While they had previously lived a rather quiet and peaceful life, Uranus had other plans for them when she noticed their potential. Naturally, both sisters felt the bloodthirsty intentions of Uranus and tried to turn down the CPU. When it came down to it though, the older sister, who wanted to protect the younger tried to bargain with the CPU in order to spare the younger._

 _While Uranus could have easily just killed them, she had another idea in mind: She would take the younger sister hostage and using that as leverage, she controlled the elder sister in whatever way she wanted. This lead to a long course of torture and training, and after a few years, this older sister was developed into a ruthless assassin with a bow,"_ Kurome explained as she held up Neptune's bow while smiling.

"No, you can't mean..." Nepgear replied, aghast at the implications.

" _That's right, the sisters were the two of you. Perhaps you are wondering why you don't remember any of this... well, let's get to the good part then. As you are all aware, around this time the Deity of Sin arose, and combined with the already going console war, Gamindustri was ravaged. Seeing the imminent end, all the CPUs agreed to a ceasefire in order to save Gamindustri from the Deity of Sin... or that was the intention anyway._

 _Uranus, trusting in her own ability wanted nothing to do with the other CPUs, and that's when she planned to have Nepsy paralyse the other CPUs so she could reap their souls into her sword as well. When she successfully killed the other CPUs, she had then called the rest of the assassin forces of Planeptune to subdue Nepsy as well, so that nobody would be able to stand against her. However, this is where she underestimated just how much Nepsy hated her all these years, as Nepsy not only broke free away from the special forces Uranus sent, but was able to make it in time to the battle between Uranus and the Deity of Sin._

 _Just as Uranus seemed to be victorious and was about to feed her sword's power again, Nepsy sneaked in just close enough and fired off the strongest shot she could muster, piercing Uranus from the back of the head and straight into the Deity of Sin. This killed Uranus instantly while defeating the Deity of Sin, and with Uranus gone Nepsy finally rescued her dear sister. During the imprisonment, Gearsy had heard about Histoire's power and why Uranus had sealed her, so both sisters went to where Histoire was sealed in order to free her... and that's when the unexpected happen: When I made Histoire, she had one safety measure in place to preserve her existence, and that was a neutralisation beam that resets the personality and memories of the target._

 _And so unknowingly, when Nepsy and Gearsy broke Histoire's seal, the trap went off that was intended for Uranus on the both of them, and they ended up forgetting everything and fell into a coma. Histoire of course, had no idea such events happened either with her being sealed for so long. When all was said and done, with the share power resonating with the two sisters, it leads us to the present day: A clueless and talentless CPU that ruled without a care in the world in regards to her role, until now that is._ "

"I can't believe that, but... there's no denying the facts," Uzume uttered in horror as did everybody else at the rather convoluted and shocking blood soaked past of Planeptune.

"Yes, that is why I wanted destruction, nothing has changed at all. The people feared me, Uranus they hated, and now even Nepsy is loathed in some ways. Of course, I don't expect Gearsy to be any different. That is why since my defeat, I had already been working through Nepsy when she was asleep, and also passed on some key information to Arfoire in order to bring about this wonderful world of despair, but it appears that even Arfoire has failed, which is why I will have to fulfill that wish by myself!" Kurome said as she took aim with Neptune's bow towards the direction of the CPUs.

In what seemed to be a surprise attack, everybody was alerted that Kurome somehow existed again to start another reign of terror, but even before being able to fire an arrow, another magic circle appeared and as if a flame dissolving, Kurome seemed to lose control of Neptune's body.

"(You know, with your bloodlust was too obvious that I saw this one coming, so back down you go!)" Neptune said from inside as she regained consciousness. Neptune sighed and spoke in response, "Well, I didn't ask for a spokesperson to explain everything for me, but it is what it is. I have unintentionally caused trouble once again, but hopefully for the last time now."

"Wait, Neptune," Histoire called to Neptune, seeing the broken Goddess ready to leave.

"What is it Histoire? If it's an apology, save it. Because I should be the one apologising after all the years of agony that I have caused you."

"Even with everything considered, is this not a rash decision? After all the past incidents, you have always returned to your home in Planeptune despite the complications. I... believe that this whole incident you have at least realised your own importance and responsibilities in this world. Furthermore, you've always done everything for Nepgear, so would it not go against what you are to leave now?" Histoire reasoned.

"It's never that simple. While it is true that everything I did was for Nepgear, I only lost myself in the process, and even more so after regaining my memories. If I have to say, that 'Neptune'-useless idiot of a CPU of Planeptune that everybody knew-she's _dead_. I have thought long and hard about this in the past weeks, and with killing people the only thing I am good for, I am not suited for this. Nevertheless, I will give this back," Neptune replied as she handed Nepgear the golden tome. "Nepgear, in our younger days you had once said that your greatest wish was for world peace, I believe that unlike me you can achieve that goal. Kurome mentioned it too, Planeptune CPUs all have some sort of special attribute or ability, yours has already been your charisma and the way you make friends with everybody. I don't believe you will be the same as all the CPUs before you, because any talent that can be used for good can also be used for bad, just depends on the person in charge."

With everything said, Neptune walked away while looking back one last time, with a glance towards Histoire before eventually faded away with the camouflage device, while Nepgear called for Neptune in vain.

Just outside on the top of the castle though, Neptune crouched down, feeling the fatigue catch up with her after the long day. Of course, there was also the confirmation that Kurome actually wanted to break free and cause a ruckus again, which had to be addressed right now.

"(I didn't expect you to have a counter spell so quickly... damn you,)" Kurome said, disappointed at her lost chance to finish off the CPUs.

"(Com'on, I am not that stupid. Besides, even when you first emerged from my mind I already found it a bit strange. If you said your powers allowed you to exist beyond your own means then obviously you were still kind of alive even after merging with Uzume. I too, have seen all your memories, which explains why you knew about the things going on in the past weeks, as if you were expecting them. There was no way that the older version of me would have helped 'test' the prototype of that drug, or Compa and Iffy walking into that obvious trap. All of this was because of... us,)" Neptune said.

"(Oh yes, what a shame that you didn't catch on to my plan until it was too late. There's no way you can be awake all the time, which was perfect time to exchange information with Arfoire,)" Kurome taunted, still satisfied to a degree with the damage she caused with Neptune as the unwitting instigator of doom.

"(Still, it doesn't matter now, because even with all that going on, I am guessing you especially know _that_ is happening right?)"

"(The fact that both our consciousness being here is eroding your existence? Of course, so what are you going to do about it?)"

"(Only one thing to do... Of course, this was the real reason why I refused to return to my role as a CPU," Neptune responded as she waved her fingers to a symbol and chanted a simple spell.

"(Oh, that's interesting... to save yourself from imploding, you are going to merge our consciousness together?)"

"(That's right. Which will emerge as the dominant personality, or what will become of us? Only one way to find out... I just hope we don't turn out to be an emotionless assassin that can only say the word 'Kill' though...)" Neptune said as she completed her spell.

"(Even in your final moments, you just have make a lame reference... you truly are-guh,)" Kurome managed to say the thoughts and emotions of Kurome and Neptune merged, melding into a single personality.


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue: Blue Twilight**

"In the month after the battle with Arfoire, things have finally settled down a bit. The people affected with the Faith Dew had to be treated individually because the addiction levels varied from each person. IF finally got better after a week of rest even though she is still in a wheelchair for the time being. It was really hard to explain to them what had happened to Neptune during all this time, but it looks like they were pretty sad to find out about the truth too.

Over in Lastation, Uni had gotten better as well, but her leg still needed lots of time to heal and so she has been in crutches for the time being. Noire had it worse though, with Uni injured she had never been so stressed before. From the way she acted the few times I visited her, it was as if she was expecting Neptune to show up instead. She really seemed to feel lonely as she tries to repair Lastation with Kei.

Blanc and Rom had not been at their best either, as Ram was mostly unconscious through this time after being severely burned and is still mostly wrapped up in bandages and bedridden. I hope she does get well soon, Both Blanc and Rom seemed so desperate to hear from her again as they are left to care for Lowee by themselves.

As for Vert... she had changed, I could almost feel a certain cold look from her whenever we meet, even though she was her same usual self most of the time, perhaps she saw me differently now that I am slowly growing into the role of a CPU? I really don't know...

The Gold Third and everybody else we rescued were also going through treatment, and even though they don't remember what had happened, they apologised and began to help rebuild. Still, at this time all four nations are unsure how to handle things as many of the people who were addicted to Arfoire's drug either fell into depression from withdrawal or they just committed suicide. We were also lucky enough to find Affimojas' ship broken down nearby Arfoire's castle, and we found both him and Steamax's central system intact to transfer them to temporary sentry robots in the meantime.

As for me... well, I had really been trying my best to uphold Planeptune. I had tremendous help from Uzume and the Neptune from the other dimension to support me, to which I am grateful for their help. Although Histoire is here, she has been... well, I guess 'broken' would describe her. Outwardly she appeared fine, but I can just see it in her eyes, she is blaming herself for Neptune's departure even though everybody knew otherwise... I guess she just felt responsible regardless. I just hope you will be fine.

I looked through my own memories from the golden tome to confirm everything, and I just can't believe how much I had suffered under Uranus, but I did see that Neptune suffered all the more just to keep me alive. When Uranus reigned with her tyranny, both Neptune and myself were born from the people's faith to bring salvation... but unfortunately our purpose was nearly perverted by Uranus herself. As a result, I finally understand why Neptune ended up hating all CPUs, despite eventually becoming one herself.

Still, I have to carry on now... Even if I didn't want to acknowledge it, I knew someday that Neptune wouldn't be here anymore, but I just never imagined that it would have to be this way. She did entrust me with Planeptune, so... I have to do my best..."

Nepgear rolled over in her bed, and sighed as she continued to rest. Her day of work had been done, and though everything was at peace in Gamindustri, the price paid was heavy for everyone involved. There was not a day where Nepgear had wondered where Neptune was, and quietly she cried into her pillow as she muttered to herself.

"Neptune, I miss you..."

And on the desk in the middle of the room was a half-empty cup of pudding, one of the few things that confirmed Neptune's former existence in the nation. Of course, Nepgear never could finish the other half, as even the sweetest pudding tasted bitter in these times.

 **On the outskirts of Planeptune...**

There stood a lone figure looking out from behind a tree dressed in a purple hoodie with familiar colours of white, light blue, and purple. The left eye of the person was a darker shade of indigo while her right eye was a lighter purple, and ehind her back hanged a dark coloured megaphone as well as sword. Looking towards the tall Planeptune tower where Nepgear was at the moment, she smiled.


End file.
